Marathon Times to Beat - if you can.

I think the point of putting together a list like this and what makes it interesting to most people is to see how you compare with famous people who have run a marathon, or those celbrity runners that have completed a marathon. It is also interesting, to me at least, to be able to see how I line up with certain well known standards - "could I qualify for Boston as an 80 year old woman?" "Did I beat Oprah?"

The more obscure the celbrity runner / famous person the less interest it is.

So you had a time that beat Weldon Johnson. "Who the hell is that? No where near as impressive as beating the marathon time of Will Ferrell (he ran at Boston you know?"

The list loses interest the more B list celerity marathoners that are added. They may be too many on the list now, but it seems there is a good mix of times. There probably should be a few more times in the 4:30-5:45 hour times. More than half of all women run longer than 5 hours.

What I like about a list of celebrity marathon times to beat, is that it gives people goals and a reason to improve your time.

It looks like the body starts to experience some decline after age 80.

malmo wrote:

He did run his first marathon while playing football. I don't think it was anywhere near 3:22.

I remember seeing something on him training for a marathon after he retired from football, and he was at least 100 pounds lighter than his football weight.

Note sure about his marathon time, but when I was in college (76-80) the swim team shared a locker room with the Vikings when they were in training camp. At that point he had already dropped quite a bit of weight much to the chagrin of the coaching staff. His last few years he felt it was more important to be fast than big. If memory server he dropped from around 235 to about 205 his last two seasons. Still looked like a big MF to me and I was normally around 185 that time of year, but he was always a super nice guy.

altitude adjustment wrote:

HoW 'bout matt carpenter's 2:50-ish at SEVENTEEN thousand feet in Tibet? What does that shit convert to? (lol)

Considering he probably started about 19 minutes late, that's not bad.

sam w wrote:

jurek's time is probably not his best, but it is the only one i could find proof of.

Scott Jurek ran 2:38:25 at 2006 Austin Marathon. Go to:

Search on 2006 results.

Search on "Scott Jurek"

I'm not sure why his name is not listed in the 2006 Austin results on marathonguide.com. For some reason, he's listed as: "Unknown Partic.1656 (M)" with a clock time of 2:38:25.

(Click on finishers 1-100)

You'll see on the austin marathon website results that Scott was bib #1656 in that race.

On Scott's website (www.scottjurek.com), he lists 2006 Austin as his marathon PR.

It's been mentioned several times, but you really need to add Ed Viesturs:

Ed Viesturs, New York City Marathon 2006 (3:15:18)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Viesturs

http://www.amazon.com/No-Shortcuts-Top-Climbing-Highest/dp/0767924703/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-6573802-3436949?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179252455&sr=8-1

He's summitted Everest 6 different times. He's the first American ever to summit all 8000m peaks in the Himalayas (the subject of his book), and only the 6th ever to do it without bottled oxygen. He has a VO2 max that is off the charts. He was the star of the 1996 IMAX movie about Everest (which was the year of the Everest tragedy which was the subject of Krakauer's famous book). He is one of the elite alpinists in the world. So it's pretty impressive IMHO for him to run a debut marathon at NYC at age 46 in 3:15:18.

jurek fan wrote:

Scott Jurek ran 2:38:25 at 2006 Austin Marathon. Go to:

http://www.attaustinmarathon.com/

thanks.

when i re did the list, i made an (admittedly half ass)effort to verify the times for most people and not simply take the word of someone for it. i did a search under marathonguide for jurek and did not find this result.

i actually think there have to be more celebrities / famous people who have run a marathon. many on the list a "b" level celebs at best. i actually thought more people have done one.

frankly, i dont think jurek qualifies as a celeb, but a certain segment of people will know who he is. and if dean k is on then jurek should be.

kiwi tramper wrote:

It's been mentioned several times, but you really need to add Ed Viesturs:

Ed Viesturs, New York City Marathon 2006 (3:15:18)

i think when i get a couple more names i will add him and a few others to the list and then re-post the list.

i would like to add alan paige as well as elliot spitzer, if i can confirm some times. i wanted the list to be mostly accurate.

To get Alan Page's official time, you might have to email Grandma's Marathon since Page evidently ran that in 1979, long before the internet. Grandma's probably still have the results from all the runnings of that race. Or maybe all the results were published in the Duluth newspaper the day after.

Same with Wilt Chamberlain at the Honolulu Marathon. Googling for that information indicates that he probably ran Honolulu sometime in the late 90s, but there is no mention of his finishing time. Again, the Honolulu Marathon (or the newspaper archives) probably have that information, but it's just a pain to have to dig it up that way. It might not have been an impressive time since he was in his late 50s at that point, but still it's pretty amazing for such a big man at that age to run a marathon.

But those would be two very prestigious names to add to your list... 2 of the greatest ever from the NFL and NBA, and neither of them had a proto-typical marathoner's body.

others wrote:

i have googled for both of their times and get different times and years for alan paige, though 1979 seems the consensus. i would have thought wilt's time would be posted somewhere. i will keep looking.

I ran 1979 Grandma's and remember watching Page finish... I don't remember the exact time but I do remember it was well under 3:40. I have two other vivid memories from that race. The first one was somewhere around 10 or 11 miles when Steve Hoag came rolling up with a couple of other guys and they're jabbering away. Hoag had his arm in a cast and says, "If we push it we can break 2:40 or we can just take it easy and run 2:48." At that moment I knew I had gone out waaay too fast. I ran 2:59:50. The second memory is getting passed at 22 miles by a woman who had completely loaded her pants. The smell was unbearable and it was running down the back of her leg. I had to slow down and let her get about 100 yards ahead of me to avoid the stench.

Ed Whitlock! Sub- 3:00 at age 71 (?) 2:56ish Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September of 2004(?)... definitely noteworthy.

Whitlock fan wrote:

Ed Whitlock! Sub- 3:00 at age 71 (?) 2:56ish Toronto Waterfront Marathon in September of 2004(?)... definitely noteworthy.

ed is amazing. no question.

Here's some more from Wikipedia, although your list is more comprehensive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_marathoners

I'm just happy to see that Wikipedia didn't list Michael Waltrip or Kyle Petty as "athletes".

David Lee Roth, (Singer) New York City Marathon 1987: 6:04:43

********

You need to correct this one. He is not a singer. He is a rock star.

Snowbear wrote:

David Lee Roth, (Singer) New York City Marathon 1987: 6:04:43

********

You need to correct this one. He is not a singer. He is a rock star.

Correction:

He is not a rock star he is a penguin.

wow...... celebrities are even slower than girls

marijuologist wrote:

wow...... celebrities are even slower than girls

Well put.

marijuologist wrote:

wow...... celebrities are even slower than girls

lol