Ever wonder what the average marathon time was?
Well here’s a meaningless number: 4:25:33.
That’s the average time for all marathon finishers in 2024. But marathon performance varies quite a bit along two dimensions: age and gender.
If you don’t group runners by age and gender, that average tells you more about who the runners are than how fast they are. And there’s a lot of bad data out there on the internet that tries to oversimplify this question.
I collected a large dataset of marathon finishers and wrote up a thorough analysis of the average finish time in Runner’s Life on Medium. If you’re not a Medium subscriber, you can request a special link to read the article here.
But I’ll share a quick version of the analysis below.
What Data Source Are We Using?
I’ve collected a large dataset of marathon finishers for various projects, including the Boston Marathon Cutoff Time Tracker. I’ve narrowed that dataset down slightly for the purposes of this analysis.
It includes finishers at American marathons in 2024 with more than 200 finishers. To the extent that it’s possible, I identified runners who completed more than one marathon in the year and kept their best time.
This left me with a dataset comprised of approximately 250 races and 400,000 finishers.
Note that this dataset only includes races in the United States. While you should expect similar results from runners around the world, which races you include in a dataset could cause minor variations in the results.
How Are We Calculating the Average?
Averages can be calculated in multiple different ways. When it comes to marathon times, the most sensible type of average to use is the median.
This means that you line up all of the results in order – from fastest to slowest – and find the runner smack dab in the middle. Half of the runners were ahead of them and half of the runners were behind them.
The arithmetic mean is another form of average. To calculate this, you total up all of the finish times and then divide that by the number of finishers. The problem with this is that it’s much more susceptible to outliers. A small number of very slow finishers can drag the average down quite a bit.
When I refer to the “average marathon time,” I will be referring to the median time.
What Is the Overall Average Marathon Time by Gender?
To give you an idea of why an overall average time is meaningless, let’s first break it out by gender.
The average marathon time for men is 4:14.
The average marathon time for women is 4:41.
As you can see, these numbers diverge quite a bit from the overall average – 4:25. That’s because men, of a similar age and fitness level, are faster than women.
At the elite level, this differential is ten to fifteen minutes. Among the rest of us mere mortals, it works out to be closer to 20 to 30 minutes.
Similarly, younger runners – of a similar gender and fitness level – are faster than masters runners. There’s not much difference among runners in their 20’s and 30’s, but the impact of age is readily apparent among runners in their 50’s and 60’s.
So to truly answer the question, it makes sense to disaggregate the data by both age and gender – and report an average time for each age group.
Average Marathon Times By Age Group
The visual below shows the average marathon time for each age group, from runners under 20 through 79. Although there is a small cohort of runners in their 80’s and 90’s that complete marathons, it’s too small to form a reliable distribution.
The red line tracks the average finish times for women, and the green line tracks the average finish times for men.
Among the men, the fastest average is the 35-39 age group: 4:04:26. If you combined the four age groups of runners 20-39, the median time is 4:06:08.
Among women, the fastest average is the 20-24 age group: 4:28:48. If you combined the four age groups of runners 20-39, the median time is 4:32:41.
The average times begin to increase slowly among runners in their 40’s, and that increase becomes quite stark by the time runners reach their 60’s.
For example, women 60-64 average 5:15:34, while the men average 4:43:03. Both of these age groups are about 40-45 minutes slower than their younger counterparts.
Want a More Detailed Analysis?
I would encourage you to check out the full analysis on Medium. Again, if you’re not a Medium subscriber, you can request a special link to read the article here.
The analysis includes a look at the top ten percent mark for each age group, a graph of the overall distribution of finish times, and a look at whether these times are improving year over year.
But I’ll leave you with some final thoughts to simplify things.
Another way to define the average is to look at the interquartile range. That’s the span of time that covers the middle 50% of finishers.
For men in their 20’s and 30’s, that range is 3:31 to 4:48.
For women in their 20’s and 30’s, that range is 3:56 to 5:14.
So if you wanted to summarize the topic, I think it’s fair to say:
- Among young men, a typical marathon time is between 3:30 and 4:45, with an overall average of about 4:05.
- Among young women, a typical marathon time is between 3:55 and 5:15, with an overall average of about 4:30.
- In both cases, the typical finish times would increase with age beyond 40.
How does this match with your expectations? Are they faster or slower than you thought they would be?