Guess what % of marathoners broke 3 hours in 2007?

My God, that was a terrible article. She had no cohesive point, just listed off stats.

What percentage of runners broke 3 in 2006? If she's trying to make a comparison, that's obviously an important stat to point out. Who let this idiot publish.

And yes, people are slow. Big surprise.

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

agreed... the numbers are all over the place. Difficult to compare year for year and I doesn't tell how many finished between 3:00:00 and 3:29:59 either.

Just a table with the raw data would be more useful... we can figure the rest out for ourselves.

some monkies are paid far more, for doing far less.

at least she tried.

yeah but how many of them took a short cut

I believe marathonguide.com will give you all the year end stats that you want

It would be neat to have the stats from years past. Show the % of marathoners that broke 3:00 hours in each year from 1970 onward. Then you could see where the marathon "jumped the shark". My guess would be somewhere in the late 80s/early 90s when "recreational marathons" and marathoners become the norm. Remember kids....anyone can "run" a marathoner...:)

Alan

In April of 2007, I ran my slowest-ever marathon, 3:09 in Paris, and it also was one of the most meaningful and important runs that I have ever done.

I started waaaaay back with the 4 and 5 hour folks, passing over 10,000 people during my journey around Paris, one of the most incredible cities in the world. Also, I found the Parisians to be some of the kindest and most hospitable people in the world.

During this marathon, I developed a deep respect for the people who take much more time to finish a marathon than myself. I will no longer call them "slow," because they are trying as hard as they can. One of my best friends in the world has a best time of 4:25, and I don't think that he'll ever run faster than this again.

The people who run these 4-6 hour marathons are supporting our beloved sport in innumerable ways, so they deserve our utmost RESPECT and ADMIRATION. Most of you know damn well how humbling and painful the marathon is.

Jason

As mentioned above, marathonguide has statistics going back to 2002. They have 2.5% of males running under 3 hours:

http://www.marathonguide.com/features/Articles/2007RecapOverview.cfm

Recaps back to 2002:

http://www.marathonguide.com/features/index.cfm

In my first marathon I was in last place after the first ten steps or so, and stayed there most of the rest of the way. Started walking/jogging at about Mile 18 or 19. At about Mile 24 or 25, absolutely forced myself to "run" the rest of the way. Came up on an old guy (must have been close to 50, maybe more) in the last mile, and beat him in by ten seconds.

To say I was not prepared for a marathon would be quite the understatement, and it showed in my pathetic tag-end performance. I was two levels below almost everyone else in the race--except for the old guy, almost everyone had finished at least a half-hour before me.

I ran 3:56. This was 1972. The race was a small one, with just a few dozen runners, over a tough course; but even though the weather was tough, certainly a quarter or more of the finishers were under 3:00. This was actually considered a fairly poor result.

In the next five to ten years I advised/coached/whatever a couple of college women under 3:00. It was absolutely nothing special at the time.

So I'll go with Runningart2004's estimate. Probably some time around 1990 (plus or minus) the whole "it's an honor just to finish" ethic took hold. Before then, even as participation ballooned, most people treated the distance as a race and not as a survival contest.

I would say a large part of that had to do with the weather at many of the popular marathons in the US in 2007.

Boston was not great, Chicago was horrible, and a few others ended up not being ideal for fast times...

Obviously not the complete answer, but I am sure it messed with the numbers a bit.

Imagine how healthy and productive America would be if the majority of the population ran 4 or 5 hour marathons. It would be a great thing.

Also, there are plenty of accomplished athletes who run only for cross training and have to push hard for a 3 hour finish. Just because a bunch of single sport running nerds like to posture as if a 3 or 4 hour finish is far beneath them doesn't mean it's so.

Got it, you pathetic fool?

c+c=2c wrote:

Also, there are plenty of accomplished athletes who run only for cross training and have to push hard for a 3 hour finish. Just because a bunch of single sport running nerds like to posture as if a 3 or 4 hour finish is far beneath them doesn't mean it's so.

I agree, breaking 3hrs is a tough thing to do, even for people who are in fairly good shape. I run 50 miles per week, which is not that great, but still way above the average person, and there is no way I could break 3hrs. Although, I feel like if you can not break 5hrs, you really shouldn't be going out there.

Runningart2004 wrote:

It would be neat to have the stats from years past. Show the % of marathoners that broke 3:00 hours in each year from 1970 onward. Then you could see where the marathon "jumped the shark". My guess would be somewhere in the late 80s/early 90s when "recreational marathons" and marathoners become the norm. Remember kids....anyone can "run" a marathoner...:)

Alan

Well, the numbers when looked at as a whole hide a lot of facts. Basically you're saying the marathon jumped the shark when they started letting women run. In 1970 there were no women running marathons for all intents and purposes. Even into the early 90's the participation of women in the marathon was in the low teens or single digits. Then women's participation jumped significantly at the same time participation by men in their prime marathon years dropped. The late 90's saw most of the rise in participation by what's been called "adult onset runners", people that aren't likely to post top times. The very late 90's and early 00's saw big jumps in participation by women in that late 20's.

When you look at early 2000's you see many of the major marathons hitting male/female ratios nearing 50/50, the age of participants still on the geezer side, so there's no surprise that average times and the percentage of sub-3's drop.

If you're interested in some numbers from the late 90's, I have some posted at:

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.

juicy miler wrote: Although, I feel like if you can not break 5hrs, you really shouldn't be going out there.

I'm with you there. I've walked the marathon distance under five hours on multiple occasions, and have to feel that somebody who was healthy and could run at all ought, if fit, to be able to better that time.

Thanks keith, this helps to compair some of the years. Interesting topic, all though it would be nice to see some of the older years stats like everyone else has noted.

So we have the always pompous RunningArt and this guy:

"I've walked the marathon distance under five hours on multiple occasions"

... proclaiming that 3-hour marathoners are indicative of today's poor standards.

Whatever.

fold art wrote:

juicy miler wrote: Although, I feel like if you can not break 5hrs, you really shouldn't be going out there.

I'm with you there. I've walked the marathon distance under five hours on multiple occasions, and have to feel that somebody who was healthy and could run at all ought, if fit, to be able to better that time.

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.