Guess what % of marathoners broke 3 hours in 2007?

Thanks for posting all of the above. It's so easy for too many the talented young runners on this board to forget about the "rest of us"... those that LOVE to run, and can even run pretty well on a recreational level... sort of like golfers who shoot 85-90. My 42 minute 10k's are now 51 minute 10k's... that's aging for you ! I had to change my handle ( trailrunner 65) today, raising that last digit.

Take me for instance... a former half decent to pretty good college HJ'er, and as an adult a run-for-fun 5k/10k'er, and now also into trailrunning, and now ramping up and dreaming of getting a Boston Q this fall. It's only 4:15 but I'll have to bust my *ss to get it. But I WILL.

2:42 thoner wrote:

Back in the day, before most of the boys on here were born, the BAA standard for men 39 & younger was 2:50 for the 26.2 mile distance. Now give me some example of how the under 40 male subset is performing today. All you have to do is look at how many OT Marathon men we had under 2:20 in 1984.

For a short time the male standards were 2:50 for the open division and 3:10 for anyone 40 years old and above but the standards were more relaxed for many years before the late 1970\'s and the 1980\'s.

It\'s important to keep in mind that even in the heyday of American marathoning the Boston Marathon might start only one or two thousand runners and that was true even into the early 1980\'s.

Back then, only hardcore runners ran marathons and only the hardest core ran Boston so the addition of any slower runners was bound to dramatically decrease the percentage of fast finishing times.

Dr No KNow wrote:

No you have not WALKED a marathon in under 5 hours.

That means you walked at a 5.2 mph pace - an 11:24 mpm pace. A person begins to "jog" at about a 4.6 mph or so speed.

You may have jogged one, though to be honest I doubt you have ever run or walked one.

Well, there are those who would agree that I never "ran" one--jogged is more like it--only did a couple and never broke three hours!

And maybe a racewalker would argue about whether I was "walking" those sub-five-hour marathons--I have difficulty straightening either leg absolutely completely.

But that difficulty stems from injuries that make it impossible for me to run (or jog) across an intersection, much less 26 miles. (If I ever get both feet off the ground at the same time, I'm in big trouble.) I think anybody--other than a RW judge, maybe--who saw me moving would call it a fast walk.

Given that top 50km RWers can get through the marathon distance close to three hours, I don't think it's out of the question for a "regular" walker to get through it ~2hrs slower.

FWIW I live in NYC and am by no means the fastest walker on the sidewalk, though I can probably keep my speed going longer than most.

Maybe because you finished instead of dropping out.

Basically, this means that 98.3% of Letrunners are full of sh-t.

fold art wrote: FWIW I live in NYC and am by no means the fastest walker on the sidewalk, though I can probably keep my speed going longer than most.

And to continue your tangent, I hereby confirm that NYC pedestrians are considerably faster than other American walkers.

What blew my mind was how much faster they walk in St. Petersburg (the Leningrad one, not the FL one) - and I'm told the Moscow pace is faster still. I don't follow racewalking but curious whether Russians make any waves in that, er, "sport"?

2007 was the first year in 13 years that I didn't break 3 hours in at least one marathon. Getting old sucks. It used to not even be a consideration that I wouldn't break 3 hours. Getting older and having more responsibilities slows you down.

I couldn't really tell, but it seems like the numbers in the article are for the number of times that the three hour barrier was broken, not the number of people who did it. For example, if a runner runs three marathons and one is sub three, for the purposes of this article, he should be counted once as a person who broke three. From the numbers that they have, it seems like he would be counted three times as one sub three and two three plus hour marathons.

If this is the case, the article shouldn't claim that 1.7% of marathoners broke three. It should claim that 1.7% of finishing times were under three. They're really two very different things.

So basically you're saying that anyone who is even slightly slower than you is a blight on marathoning.

Hope your weighty responsibilities and advancing age don't burden you so much that you become part of the awful problem that average marathoners inflict on the sport.

you read a lot into what I wrote.

I wasn't trying to say anything of the sort of what you thought.

I don't even know what the awful problem average marathoners inflict on the sport that you write about.

Sounds like you may have a chip on your shoulder.

posted on Ultra Tread

The NYC Marathon was pretty much a runners only race when it was in the park (1970-75). Using seat of the pants math... the average median finisher for those 6 in parkraces was 3:21(3-19,23,02,01,31,26).

In the 6 years 1984-89 the average median was 4:08(4-18,15,02,03,10,02)

Big city event marathoning came of age in the early 1980s and jumped the shark in 1984 with the first over 4 hour median time.

The 2006 and 07 medians were 4:22 and 4:23.

Dr No KNow wrote:

No you have not WALKED a marathon in under 5 hours.

That means you walked at a 5.2 mph pace - an 11:24 mpm pace. A person begins to "jog" at about a 4.6 mph or so speed.

The 50k racewalk record is like 3 hours, 35 minutes. That means the guy could have gone 5 fewer miles and taken an 85 minute break and still broken 5 hours.

But don't let facts get in the way of your theories, that's not how things are done here!

Out of curiousity how old are you? And I think the other guy was replying to some other post.

Woohoo I am a "true elite!"

According to the artical .1% the "true elite" ran under 2:29.59!

I'm gonna put that on my next running resume since I'm about 3 min faster than the cutoff...I am a back of the packer true elite!

Noone can take that away from me!

2:42 thoner wrote:

Back in the day, before most of the boys on here were born, the BAA standard for men 39 & younger was 2:50 for the 26.2 mile distance. Now give me some example of how the under 40 male subset is performing today. All you have to do is look at how many OT Marathon men we had under 2:20 in 1984.

And before that there were no time standards, just saying that could run a marathon was enough.

zzzz wrote:

I guessed 2% right before I clicked on your message...

YOU WERE WRONG!!!

Big flipping deal, what you really saw was a boatload of people who refuse to "try as hard as they can" the other 364 days out of the year. Your pal just wasn't cut-out for distance running competitively, there's no shame in that. Doesn't mean that he or anyone else automatically deserves my respect or admiration, that's a dumb claim. I'm not so sure that the sport would really be worse without their so-called support.

I'm always perplexed how people think they can accurately determine how hard other people train, how fast they are capable of running, and how hard they are trying just by looking at a finishing time. Should I assume all those who run a 2:30 marathon can drop 10-15 minutes off their times if they would just "try as a hard as they can?" After all, that's still 25 minutes short of the world record. Lots of room for improvement.My thought... if running for 5 hours sounds so easy, then why aren't we all moving up to the ultra marathons? If the masses think runners of elite stature are looking down their noses at the common runner, perhaps that's why said people have lost interest in running as a sport and now only think of it as a way to stay in shape. Some things to ponder.....

Harry Kooter wrote:

I couldn't really tell, but it seems like the numbers in the article are for the number of times that the three hour barrier was broken, not the number of people who did it. For example, if a runner runs three marathons and one is sub three, for the purposes of this article, he should be counted once as a person who broke three. From the numbers that they have, it seems like he would be counted three times as one sub three and two three plus hour marathons.

If this is the case, the article shouldn't claim that 1.7% of marathoners broke three. It should claim that 1.7% of finishing times were under three. They're really two very different things.

This is the best post on this mess of a thread.The numbers stated in the article mean nothing.