The 1988 Marine Corps Marathon was my fist marathon. I needed to break 3:00 to qualify for Boston, and I finished in a little over 2:58. There were well under 10000 finishers that year. I found the results from that year here:
You'll note that the 400th place male came in at 2:59:03. That would have take 124th place overall in 2017, in a field over twice the size.
That's difficult to comprehend
You raced in an era when ships were made of wood and men were made of steel!
do you think thats the case because its the “peoples marathon”? or do you think most marathon fields have gotten slower?
Did a similar exercise between 1989 NYCM and 2013. 500th place was 2:46ish in 89, 10 minutes slower in 13.
Quality of fields have been diluted because option for marathon have dramatically increased since 1987.
Baby boom
/end of thread.
The quality of runner in the 70s - 90s period was superior.
It's pretty obvious.
As someone already mentioned that there are way more marathons these days so fields get diluted. Some faster runners may also have been denied entry because marathon closed up due to the total number of entries. The results you posted didn't have the weather, this year it was on the warmer side with high humidity and lots of sunshine.
Part of it is that not as many Americans are training hard for the marathons but I also think that part of it is the number of marathons.
In the 1988 Marathon, the 5th person from the DC area (DC/VA/MD) finished in 17th place in a time of 2:30:24 while this year 5th in the DC area was 8th in 2:30:52 (would have been 18th in 1988).
According to marathonguide.com, there have been 860+ marathons in each of the past 4 years - think this is only US and Canada (think I read somewhere else that there were 1000+ so who knows real number). In 2000, there were only 220. Have to imagine there were fewer than that in 1988 (probably fewer than 200 but no clue). People had to travel to marathons years ago but not really as much any more. The races have been diluted so that the top runners in races in the past are not getting to run against each other.
A friend of mine, an engineer who's into this kind of stuff, sent me this link a couple months ago.
https://runrepeat.com/american-runners-have-never-been-slower-mega-study
Some interesting comments about the story and various theories here:
There was a book out a few years back call Manthropology, the premise was that modern man was slower, softer and weaker than his ancestors. Looks alot more like: ancient man>modern man> post modern (nanny state) man
(Sorry no emojis)
I was going through old pictures and found a picture of me running a run-of-the-mill local 10K road race in 1983. The race maybe had 500 runners. I ran around 37 minutes and change (a little faster than 6 minute pace). I think the photo was taken pretty close to the finish.
What is strange looking at the picture over three decades later is the large number of other runners in the photo. Someone running at 6 minute pace in a similarly sized race today would likely be running alone.
I think it is a matter of fewer serious recreational runners.
It's a common fact that courses back then often measured short.
Course measurer wrote:
It's a common fact that courses back then often measured short.
If it's a common fact, could you cite some references showing which courses were "measured short?" And could you particularly show the ones showing that the Marine Corps" course was one of them?
1. Average times have gotten slower because there are more people doing marathons, and much of the focus has shifted from racing to running for health and/or charity. This is a good thing, as it gets more people out there.
2. The faster times are generally getting slower because there is far more diversity in the types of races people are doing these days. I have friends who have done sub-3 hour marathons during triathlons who haven't done a standalone marathon in years.
3. Many of those folks who were running faster marathons back in the day have slowed substantially and are no longer running. My dad is one who is no longer running. He ran a 2:57 back in the 80s, but no longer runs. His progeny (me), would rather run trail races, which have slower times because of far more difficult courses.
4. The marathon is no longer the standard of endurance for elite athletes. As I hinted at in point #2, a lot of faster folks are going for things like Ironman, Ultraman, 100k or 100 mile trail races, etc. Heck, a friend of mine finished a 240 mile trail race last week! Surely, the energy spent training for ultras could be spent on faster times for shorter races? As a side point, my fastest 5k was run when I was 12 (29 years ago). I haven't run a 5k in almost that long...
Ackley wrote:
Someone running at 6 minute pace in a similarly sized race today would likely be running alone.
I think it is a matter of fewer serious recreational runners.
No, you'd be running alone because you're slow.
If you think about changes in the sport I don't know that the overall slowing is that difficult to comprehend. I don't think there's any question that a much larger percentage of today's marathon fields are made up of people who just want to finish and who have very little concern about their time and place when they do. But as someone else pointed out, there are many more marathons being held now. If there were five hundred people capable of running under three hours living within . say, a an eight hour drive of DC, many of them would run MCM, say 250 of them. Now those 250 are going to be spread out among several other marathons being held in the east or even in the midwest around this time of year. Rav=ce fields are getting older too. Darrell General is still running MCM but now he's hoping to be around 3:20 instead of 2:20 like he was doing twenty plus years ago. I'd love to know if someone has compared the average age of marathon finishers today with ones from 20-40 years ago. If that age has moved from 34 to 43, you're going to see slower times.
Man Overboard wrote:
Baby boom
/end of thread.
The baby boomers were born from roughly 1945-1960 so would have been 28-43 years old in 1988. Were you trying to compliment boomers?
HRE wrote:
Course measurer wrote:
It's a common fact that courses back then often measured short.
If it's a common fact, could you cite some references showing which courses were "measured short?" And could you particularly show the ones showing that the Marine Corps" course was one of them?
Yes.
OK boys, turn your focus to the women for a moment. Here are the ladies places 1, 10, 50, and 100. The winner is 6min quicker this year but the other places are around 2mins or less in difference, which I do not consider a significant change. Anyone have a logical explanation?
1988 MARINE CORP MARATHON
WOMEN
1, Lori Lawson, Philadelphia, 2:51:16
10, Patricia O'Brien, Severna Park, Md., 3:02:54
50, Claire Kenny, Ridgefield, Conn., 3:20:22
100, Becky Nolan, Annandale, 3:27:18
2017 MARINE CORP MARATHON
WOMEN
1, Sarah Bishop (F35) 2:45:07
10, Jennifer Comfort (F24) 3:04:00
50, Kali Gall (F25) 3:22:06
100, Kimberly Lewnes (F28) 3:29:09