I reviewed the race results of the four NYRR Half Marathons (Manhattan, NYC, Brooklyn, and Staten Island) for last two years, entered the times into Excel, and averaged the times corresponding times for the Top 0.1%, 0.5%, 1%, 5%, 10%, 25%, and 50% of the fields.
Ex: The 2014 Staten Island Half had 9,548 finishers. Top 1% would be 95th place for that race, which was 1:23:46. I averaged this time with the 1% cutoff times from the 7 other races.
Admittedly it's a small sample size (only 8 races) and the NYC Half skewed the data somewhat at the faster end (ie: Top 1% and faster) because of the larger number of elites that race it. At the very least, the data gives some sense of where a particular half-marathon time places you relative to other runners:
Top 50% = 2:00:22 (9:11 pace)
Top 25% = 1:48:13 (8:15 pace)
Top 10% = 1:38:03 (7:29 pace)
Top 5% = 1:32:17 (7:02 pace)
Top 1% = 1:22:33 (6:18 pace)
Top 0.5% = 1:18:54 (6:01 pace)
Top 0.1% = 1:11:21 (5:27 pace)
World Record = 58:23 (4:27 pace)
Zersenay Tadese
Now to put these times and percentages into perspective, I plugged different incomes into the income percentile calculator at the link below and came up with the following estimates for income levels:
Top 50% = $43,000
Top 25% = $86,000
Top 10% = $155,000
Top 5% = $201,000
Top 1% = $507,000
Top 0.5% = $830,000
Top 0.1% = $2,080,000
Highest CEO compensation = $377,996,537
Tim Cook of Apple (for 2011)
Source:
http://www.therichest.com/rich-list/world/top-10-people-with-the-highest-salaries-in-the-world/10/
Link to income percentile calculator:
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/10/19/what-percent-are-you/
Admittedly it's far from scientific, but it's interesting to see the comparison and how it could get interpreted differently depending on the context. For instance, a A 1:32 Half = $200k income percentage-wise. A 1:32 Half is slow by Letsrun standards, just as $200K+ salaries are commonplace in Wall Street investment banks. In reality, both figures are well above average.
Where do you rank in terms of running and income? As for myself, I'm just outside the Top 1% for running, but in the bottom 50% for income (full-time student). Hoping to close the gap between the two some day.
- Running-Economy