This particular issue seems like a complete non-issue. What’s the big deal about how long the race course should be, or women running the same distance? When I was running cross-country in high school and college (boys, men- 1970s) our practice runs were routinely 12-15 miles comfortably fast pace, 5 or 6 miles uncomfortably fast pace... I assumed that the girls’ schools were following the same regimen. There was no question about all of us being able to cover the distance. We were running five times the race distance in practice. We often ran in the same races, boys and girls, though not scored against each other at race end. (but of course it was the worst shame to be beaten by a girl). I thought 15 miles was a long way to run when I was a fantastically fit teenager...until I started running marathons as I neared 40. The human body, male or female, will do nearly anything required of it, within reason. ...And (!!!!) some of the very best ultra runners (over 50 miles, over 100 miles) are women runners. The longer the race, the closer women get to male accomplishments.