What are some achievements in other sports that are comparable to completing a marathon in under three hours?

Okay, I actually posed the question at Chat GPT. This was the answer, and I'm not joking.

The bowling equivalent of running a sub-3-hour marathon would be achieving a 300 game — that is, bowling a perfect game. In bowling, a perfect score is 300, which requires a bowler to strike every frame, throwing 12 strikes in a row (one per frame in a 10-frame game).
Just like a sub-3-hour marathon is a rare and elite accomplishment in running, a 300 game is the pinnacle in bowling, symbolizing both consistency and exceptional skill. It’s a benchmark that only a small percentage of bowlers ever achieve, much like breaking the 3-hour barrier in the marathon.

Throwing a spiral 10 yards.

Thing is, even though 5:20 and 18:20 are equivalent on a scoring table they're just not the same. More on that in a bit.

In HS I was a basketball wannabe, but at 5-8" 5'9" and only average skills that wasn't going to happen. But I did play rec league for 2 years and indeed, as a junior played about half a game and averaged 3-4 pts at best, and as senior played most of the time and probably averaged 10 pts a game. So interesting (maybe coincidental) parallel. I think a better basketball analogy would be a 2nd teamer at a mid-sized (1000+/-) high school program, or a fairly decent university intramural/good rec league starter.

Back to running, off of 8-10 miles a week at the end of my senior year, with no prior running background, I ran your 5:20 mile and about 19 for 5K. So out of the box, so to speak. There was no way I would be able to run sub 3 for a marathon that year. A sub 3 is a lot harder to attain than those times and it would take a year or so of concerted effort to get to that level.

As a middle aged dude whose last marathon was just under 3hrs and probably has a bench ORM of around 250-260, this checks out

There is definitely a correlation between really cringey troll posts and people who for some reason want to abolish the “discus” meme.

Playing basketball in 7th grade at a YMCA, on a Thursday night.

Using the .67 rule, the Chess equivalent is a 1934 ELO rating. This is based upon the highest ELO ever, Magnus Carlsen at 2882 in 2014. 1934 is probably harder than 3:00 but who is to say. And Magnus is the truly greatest Norwegian sportsman of the past decade, sorry Jakob and Karsten step aside you lose.

It's really funny. Don't be a moran. Go back to lurking.

Yeah sub-3 is probably harder to attain than a 5:20 mile or 18:20 5k (at least for most people) in terms of how much work it requires. I'm really not sure if it takes more work to run a sub 3 marathon or to become a second-teamer on a mid-sized high school program, though. That's about the caliber basketball player I am (only played freshman year of high school then was pretty good in university IM), and I worked pretty hard at it growing up, probably 5 hours or so a week for a while.

I personally feel like my level as a basketball player is probably about comparable to a 2:59 marathon--much better than lots of people who have either never worked at it or are just totally uncoordinated, but much worse than college caliber players or genuinely good high schoolers.

Maintaining a bowling average of over 150. I'd say bowling a 200 game, but one lucky game isn't really a good comparison.

Winning the Buffalo Wild Wings Blazin’ Wing Challenge.

Earning a B ranking in beach volleyball.

I don't have experience riding a century in a pack but when I saw this, my immediate reaction was that riding a century alone in under 4 hours is *much* harder than running a 3:00 marathon. Maybe biking a 1-hour 40k would be a more similar accomplishment. In swimming, perhaps a 25 minute mile(?) Not sure the equivalent cross country ski performance. With something like weightlifting, whatever you propose should be as a percentage of the lifter's body weight, I think.

Sub 3:00 hours is way harder than a 5:20 mile if you aren't slow twitch. I ran 4:20 for a mile; 4:56 per mile for 5k, and a 10k at 5:12 per mile, and only ran 2:47:30 for a marathon (virtually perfect even pace too).

3:00 is a great achievement. Elitism is what holds this sport back. Get your heads of your own backsides and appreciate who keeps the sport going for elites- it ain’t the people the fans ahold!

Something to do with eating a certain number of hotdogs in an hour.

... and living.

I would say that rather than everyone saying over and over that a century in 4 hours is much harder than a 3 hour marathon, we should be looking towards the equivalent. I would lean on the equivalent being a 5 hour century. 20mph for 5 hours, not extremely difficult for someone that routinely bikes, but much more-so for your weekend warrior types. Much like the marathon. Any healthy young man that routinely trains for a marathon is going to be able to hit that 3 hours without difficulty, but the average man that runs a few times a week maybe, probably not gonna happen. Same for the 5 hour century.

Folding a fitted sheet