Exactly. I'm not interested enough in this to dig up actual numbers here but I'd bet 2:18 puts a guy at least at the 95th percentile of all marathon times and quite possibly higher. I'd really like it if there was a way we could see what sort of marathon times, if any, people who post here about how weak times like 2:20 or so are. In real life I've never known anyone who's run faster than that would agree with the sort of nonsense the OP put here.
Runners World used to publish every marathon time reported. I ran a 2:49 and was very near the top % of the American list. And this was before the mega marathons were as mega as they are now.
Think about how many different people run marathons all over the world- big city, small town ...
I deliberately underestimated the percentile a 2:18 marathon runner would be at because I thought saying it was at least the 95th left a lot of room for error and I wasn't sure how to check to see where it really puts you.. I'm glad to see that there are others posting here who got real numbers. When I see threads and posts like the original one in this thread I have a hard time believing that people who make them have trained for and raced marathons at all seriously.