Why are mainstream marathon runners slower today?

boston is too hard, people don't run it for a good time anymore...pussies

People don't want to be competitive -- it's hard work and they might lose. They want to finish and hold it as this great accomplishment -- so they run 40mpw for 16 weeks and do a 26mi run and they're such a decorated person.

To quote the great George Carlin, "...the continued pussification of America!"

20 years ago the focus was more on the actual running. The goal for the average marathon participant was a running goal -- like breaking 3 hours. Now the focus is on participation/fun, so now there are more finishers but slower times.

another reason might be the # of marathons today.Back in early 80 not as many big marathons.Also not as many competive runners running after the are through with running as college or hs.

Also, the sub-elite runner seems to be a vanishing breed. 20 years ago, there were lots of people like me, not elite, but serious runners. Nowadays it seems like there are only elite and fun runners, nothing in between. Lately, I was surprised to see that my marathon pr, which would have placed me in the top 10% 20 years ago, would still have placed me in the top 10% in the latest New York City Marathon.

When you take a look at the current statistics from marathons world wide there are more sub 2:30 marathoners, not less. The number of sub 2:30's is directly proportional to the number of participants in any given year. Compared to the 80's there are many more sub 2:30's today, they're just spread out over more races. As the marathon WR has improved over the past three decades, so too has the average finishing time for both men and women, based on probability theory; it's statistically impossible for them not to be.

Idon't know about all the others, but the average finishing time in the London Marathon is getting slower every year.

I have to go with the theory that says we have the same number of sub-elite marathoners today, but the high number of races around the world has watered down the field for any given event.

academictech wrote:

As the marathon WR has improved over the past three decades, so too has the average finishing time for both men and women, based on probability theory; it's statistically impossible for them not to be.

WHAT?????????????????????

academictech wrote:

When you take a look at the current statistics from marathons world wide there are more sub 2:30 marathoners, not less. The number of sub 2:30's is directly proportional to the number of participants in any given year. Compared to the 80's there are many more sub 2:30's today, they're just spread out over more races. As the marathon WR has improved over the past three decades, so too has the average finishing time for both men and women, based on probability theory; it's statistically impossible for them not to be.

Can you explain? My head is hurting just trying to figure out what you said.

There might have been 20 annual marathons in the USA in 1970. Some states have more than that now, so the best Americans are a bit spread out. Back in the 60s and 70s EVERY top American marathoner, or anyone with aspirations of such, ran Boston. Also, I'm of the opinion that the economy in general has made it harder to be a "running hippie" for a few post-collegiate years now than 20 years ago, and the move to openly professional running has made it less tolerated. For example, a friend of mine was going to take 3 months off work leading into the '80 Oly Trials marathon (but backed out once the boycott was announced). I couldn't imagine an employer being that understanding today.

He is saying that there are actually more sub 2:30 runners today in total. Apparently he is unaware of this little thing called percentage of sub 2:30 runners which is more the point.

It is quite possible for the following scenario to be true (when comparing current year to some previous year):

1. WR faster

2. Average winning times faster

3. Total number of 2:30's greater

4. Average of all finishing times slower

All you need to do is take a bunch of people in say the 2:31 to 3:00 bracket and push them back 30 mins or so. That will more than compensate for the relatively small number of faster front runners. (When I say "average" I mean the arithmetic mean, not the median.) This can also be accomplished by increasing the participation numbers and having the bulk of the new people finish slower than the previous year's average.

> It is quite possible for the following scenario to be true:

> 1. WR faster

> 2. Average winning times faster

> 3. Total number of 2:30's greater

> 4. Average of all finishing times slower

Exactly. And this is almost certainly what is happening. There are two interesting questions underlying this, which rarely get asked explicitly:

1. Are people who would have run sub-2:30 twenty years ago not doing so these days because it is easier to place quite highly in marathons with a slower time today? In other words, did the structure of marathons then (not many, everyone serious runs Boston) push people to train harder than they do today?

2. Is it the case that the 1990s-to-present marathoning boom attracts as new marathoners disproportionately few runners with the potential (and likelihood) to run sub-2:30? In other words, are the ranks of new marathoners drawn at random from the population, or do they draw primarily from those who, either by inclination or by talent, are going to remain recreational marathoners only?

I suspect that the answers are 1: no and 2: yes. But I have no data to back that up :-)

For women (to whom, of course, a different cut-off time would apply), the selection process (who runs marathons, and how hard to they try) has the added wrinkle that both in terms of background (athletics in high school/college) and social acceptability the context for women has changed dramatically over this same period.

Further, what is the current demographic? For example, if the larger participation numbers are made up of people > 40 years old, is it any wonder that the average times are slower? In this scenario, it would be possible to have equal commitment (let's coin the term "seriousity") from the new runners compared to the old, yet see slower times simply because of physiology.

Incomplete analysis of incomplete data can send you down a path that doesn't exist.

Check out the link below for a reason why mainstream Marathoners are slower, especially the post from MarciaR.

Tom Derderian in his History of Boston Marathon book talks about the decline of 2:20-2:30 runners in Boston in the mid-80s on. His bottom line was that those runners could make money in other races with those times, but there was no incentive to run at Boston. So it is a combination of a large increase in the number of other marathons and Boston not being as potentially rewarding.

People don't run as much as they used to... period.

There was a thread on letsrun from a guy who has been running for decades and he swears that the number of guys who regularly approached 100 miles per week has taken a precipitious decline. I'll try to use the new search function to find the thread...

Close but believe me, I know exactly what I wrote and stand by it. All things in nature follow a Gaussian curve or Normal Distribution.

That is to say, if we took all marathon runner's time in every marathon over the past 25 years and compared them year over year, there would be an equal distribution of the times.

If performance was static (i.e times did not improve) you would be right; there would be less 2:30 guys both in terms of absolute number and percentage of marathoners.

However, one variable has changed....we are recording faster times, thus the average time taken to complete the distance will have improved.

While there are more marathon runners today, the mean percentage of sub 2:30 runners must be greater.

You don't need to go and count them, just do the math.