- Participation in half marathons has increased 131% (hmmm... weird that this is the race distance without the decimal point) in the past decade, and the 13.1 mile distance has been the fastest growing road race since 2003.
- While females make up a larger percentage of the field in half marathons (2009: F- 57%, M- 43%), males make a larger percentage of the field in full marathons (2009: F- 41%, M- 59%)
- On average, the field is younger for half marathons (2009: under 40yrs- 61%, Master's- 39%) compared to full marathons (2009: under 40yrs- 54%, Master's- 46%).
- The median time for half marathons has increased from 2002 to 2009 (2002: F- 2:16:14, M- 1:57:45; 2009: F- 2:19:47, M- 2:00:21), but has decreased for the full marathon over the same time period (2002: F- 4:56:46, M- 4:20:01; 2009: F- 4:41:26, M- 4:13:36).
- The fastest marathon in 2009 (by median time) was Boston- 3:44:04; by comparison, the median finishing time for Steamtown was 3:55:48. Boston also featured the largest percentage of sub-4hr finishing times (69%).
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Wednesday, May 19, 2010
By the numbers...
I came across the 2010 Marathon and State of the Sport Reports (published by Running USA) the other day. Found it rather interesting... here are a few of the highlights:
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As for Boston/Steamtown...remeber that most of the folks who ran Boston had to qualify for Boston.
ReplyDeleteI would say that the increase in median time for half marathons is linked to the increased inflow of new runners at that distance. They probably stick with it since the numbers keep increasing and naturally get faster, resulting in faster full marathons.
ReplyDelete1. I know... I just think it's funny because everyone talks about how hard Boston is and how Steamtown is this super fast course, etc. I also imagine that the elite runners in Boston skew the results... they should post the mean, median, mode, and range!
ReplyDelete2. Totally agree... the marathon stats go back further... if you look, the 80s saw faster times... then they increased / stayed steady throughout the 90s and early 2000s (what the heck do you abbreviate that to... 00s seems stupid)... and then there was a huge drop last year... would look for the same trend in the half in a few years!