My girlfriend was saying that she thinks the average marathoner's weekly mileage is over 75 mileas a week. I scoffed and said, "No way! 50 tops." Help us settle this debate.
I am guessing 50 miles a week.
My girlfriend's guess is 75 mile.
What says LRC?
Elite typical mileage varies throughout the year. Bill Rodgers averaged 130 miles per week while in his prime. Most elites hit that while in the height of marathon training. I remember Sammy averaged 120 kilometers per week throughout the year, though Kenyans often take a month off completely from training after their peak race.
Hobby joggers will often only do 30 MPW.
Pro or amateur?
Pro, easily over 75. Probably 100+.
Amateur, easily under 75. Probably like 30-40.
2:10-2:12- 90-110
2:08-2:10-110-130
2:06-208-120-150 (About as fast as you can get with ZERO TALENT and just hard work)
Sub-2:06 see 2:06-2:08 and a genetic gift, Plus Rarely injured Plus Good coaching plus over a Lot of years, Most with a genetic gift will stand out after a year or 2 even without top notch training.
2:20-2:30-70-90
2:30-2:40-60-80
2:40-3:00-50-70
OVER 4:00 35-50
In the US, the average men's marathon time is 4:16, and women's is 4:41
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20795961/how-do-you-compare-to-the-average-road-racer/
According to this chart, it takes about 19 miles per week to run the average marathon time for both sexes
Zero Talent is maybe not the right word an example of a non talent who excelled in the Marathon was Bill Rodgers who only ran 9:36 for 2 miles in high school, and 8:58 for 2 miles (A time many people at or near his level ran faster than in high school.), But Rodgers loved running ran 20-30 miles a day pretty much everyday and became world class. He had a poor diet frozen pizza dipped in mayonaise and chocalate chip cookies was a typical meal, he ran as he felt, but did not structure his workouts like most do today, he ran 2:08.23 on a 100-200 meter short course in Japan which would have been his best , he always ran Boston (Nickname Boston Billy) New, York and Fukuoka so the only fast course he ran to do his best was 4-6 weeks after New York, He probably would be a 2:06 runner on a Berlin Course especially with a better diet, but that is about as good as anyone could do without major talent, the guys running his times were ALL better than 9:36 for 2 miles in High School and Most people running the times he did were better in High School than Rodgers was in College, his talent was love of running to the point of running 20-30 miles a day everyday, 2-3 times a day, and not getting injured.
douglas burke wrote:
Zero Talent is maybe not the right word an example of a non talent who excelled in the Marathon was Bill Rodgers who only ran 9:36 for 2 miles in high school, and 8:58 for 2 miles (A time many people at or near his level ran faster than in high school.), But Rodgers loved running ran 20-30 miles a day pretty much everyday and became world class. He had a poor diet frozen pizza dipped in mayonaise and chocalate chip cookies was a typical meal, he ran as he felt, but did not structure his workouts like most do today, he ran 2:08.23 on a 100-200 meter short course in Japan which would have been his best , he always ran Boston (Nickname Boston Billy) New, York and Fukuoka so the only fast course he ran to do his best was 4-6 weeks after New York, He probably would be a 2:06 runner on a Berlin Course especially with a better diet, but that is about as good as anyone could do without major talent, the guys running his times were ALL better than 9:36 for 2 miles in High School and Most people running the times he did were better in High School than Rodgers was in College, his talent was love of running to the point of running 20-30 miles a day everyday, 2-3 times a day, and not getting injured.
Uh, no. Rodgers wasn't running 20/day in high school or college. In fact, Amby Burfoot was annoyed that Rodgers could float along with him on long runs as he was training for Boston.
75 mpw is over 10 miles every day. There’s no way the average 4+ hour marathoner is running anywhere near that much.
There are many at 80-90mpw but more at 40 so it is probably 50mpw.
Thanks for the replies, y'all. Seems that the consensus (of 9 respondents) is that the average weekly mileage of a marathoner is closer to 50 miles per week.
She still disagrees with me...
I think 50mpw is even a bit too optimistic and I'd place it more around 35mpw. There are many more people logging 30mpw builds than 60+ mpw.
The average marathoner doesn't run 75 miles in TWO weeks!
I used to be one of the local fast guys, running in the low 2:40s. At that time, I'd top out at about 80 mpw, although the average was probably 60-70. Now, some 2 decades later, I run over a minute a mile slower than that, and I top out at about 40 mpw. Believe me, there are lots of marathoners doing less.
When you're running 75 mpw, you don't even realize how out of touch you are with what average really is.
If you could somehow measure, I'd bet the average is closer to 30 than 50.
I've run one marathon. Did mid-50s for the buildup. I've got a bunch of friends in my running club and quite a few do the same mileage as me, but quite a few are in the 70s and 80s, too.
But then I've known a ton of people through work, extended friends and family, etc., who have run marathons. None of these people are really "runners." They are just marathon completers. And almost none of them even knew how many miles a week they were running. The person above who said the avg. times could probably be hit by doing 19 mpw strikes me as very correct as I got the impression most of these people ran 0-3 times during the week and then maybe got their "long" run in during the weekend.
You obviously need to define both "typical" and "marathoner" for this.
You could say that a marathoner is someone who runs marathons as their profession.
It is at least someone who competes in marathons on a regular basis.
It has to be frequent enough for someone to say that they are a marathoner.
"Typical" usually means average or mean.
If you come to an agreement that a typical marathoner is someone who pursues an OT standard, then your girlfriend would be right.
If you agree that it is anyone who has completed more than one marathon in their life, then you woul dbe closer.
You are both far away. She is just further. I would be shocked if it was over 30 mpw for 80% of the people doing marathons.
old man shuffle wrote:
The average marathoner doesn't run 75 miles in TWO weeks!
.
And a lot don't run that much in 3 weeks.
Plenty of marathoners only run 2-4 times a week, and equal or exceed their weekly mileage in the race itself.
To claim that the AVERAGE marathoner runs 75 miles a week is beyond nuts.
Some guy the fake one wrote:
old man shuffle wrote:
The average marathoner doesn't run 75 miles in TWO weeks!
.
And a lot don't run that much in 3 weeks.
Plenty of marathoners only run 2-4 times a week, and equal or exceed their weekly mileage in the race itself.
To claim that the AVERAGE marathoner runs 75 miles a week is beyond nuts.
"In the US, the average men's marathon time is 4:16, and women's is 4:41"
Definitely 20-30 mpw. There are a lot of people that train on 2-3 runs of 3-5 mi with a weekly long run of 14-20. This gets you to a range of 20-35 mpw. That feels about right for a 4 hour+ marathon.
I 've run 4 marathons on 20 mpw.
Tuesday 3 miles easy.
Thursday tempo run 5 to 8 miles.
Sunday long run between 8 and 20 miles slightly slower than marathon pace.
With this mileage I recently ran a 3:19 marathon PR on a flat course.
Note: I've tried upping my mileage or running 4times a week, but this resulted in injury.
How many people here consider themselves a marathoner?
I have never run a marathon, so I am not remotely in the conversation.
I once was a miler and ran 50-60 mpw.
Before that I was a half miler that ran an occasional mile but wouldn't have called myself a miler at that point.
Charlesvdw wrote:
I 've run 4 marathons on 20 mpw.
Tuesday 3 miles easy.
Thursday tempo run 5 to 8 miles.
Sunday long run between 8 and 20 miles slightly slower than marathon pace.
With this mileage I recently ran a 3:19 marathon PR on a flat course.
Note: I've tried upping my mileage or running 4times a week, but this resulted in injury.
Well, my friend, you have much to look forward to. Coach Jack Daniels wrote that his research showed that averaging 60-70 miles per week for months will, for most folks, get you to 90% of your marathon potential.
It is almost a certainty that you would run way, way under three hours after 4-12 months of good training, averaging at least 50-60 miles per week. Do it now, before age makes you wonder what if.