Feature image by 4300streetcar on Wikimedia Commons - CC BY 4.0
We all know elite marathon runners run a lot. But exactly how many miles and hours do they put in during a typical week?
The accepted wisdom is that the elites put in 100+ miles per week. Some have released training plans over the years, and there are whispers of the fabled few who knock out 200 or more miles per week.
But it’s always a little hard to tell how much of this stuff is real – and how much is a mix of publicity and gossip. Recently, I stumbled on a trove of data that’s helpful for understanding what some of the world’s best runners actually do day in and day out: Strava.
Not every professional runner has a public Strava profile, but I’ve found quite a few of the top marathon runners who do share their training publicly. I used this to write up two articles that looked at whether elites actually took time off after running a marathon. Turns out some do, some don’t.
Today, I’m back with something a little more interesting. The weekly volume of a collection of elite marathon runners over the last two years.
So let’s take a look and see how much they actually run. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot.
What Does Peak Volume Look Like For the Elites?
I’ve identified nine pro athletes who have public Strava profiles: 7 men and 2 women.
I put together this list while compiling information for the articles on recovery after marathons. Some of them were included because they’re among the top ten American runners in 2024. Others are included because they finished in the top ten at the Boston Marathon.
I’ve collected the data for the most recent two years – with the exception of Emma Bates, whose data is from 2022-23.
The visual below provides a good overview. I selected the 10 highest weeks, based on mileage, for each athlete. I’ve graphed both the weekly mileage and the weekly hours, which you can toggle with the dropdown menu. If you hover over a particular dot, you’ll see the week from which the data comes from.
One thing is immediately clear – John Korir runs a ton. I guess you don’t win the Chicago and Boston Marathons by accident. He has a couple super weeks above 160 miles and a handful more in the 140’s. As I’ll explain later, the 160’s might be skewed by some bad data. But the 140’s are definitely legit.
Beyond that, there’s a clustering around 120-130 miles. Zach Panning has the highest single week (139 miles), but Dakota Popehn has the most weeks at or above 130.
Conner Mantz – who’s relatively the strongest runner here after Korir – is further down on the list. So although mileage is important – and all of these people run a ton – mileage isn’t the only thing that matters.
If you flip the filter to hours, there’s a wider spread.
Unsurprisingly, Korir has the biggest weeks. No matter how you cut it, it takes a long time to run 140+ miles. He has a couple weeks in the 18 hour range and some more in the 16 hour range.
Zach, who had some of the highest mileage weeks, has some of the shortest weeks in terms of time. Everybody else falls mostly in the 13-15 hour range, with a few outliers up a above 16 hours. In some cases, like Conner, this might be skewed by tracking non-running activities. I spot checked things and noticed some sauna activities – which would add time but not mileage.
It’s interesting that the two women up here – Dakota Popehn and Emma Bates – have among the biggest weeks in terms of time, too. But hard to really draw any firm conclusions with just two examples.
Next, let’s take a closer look at a few specific examples of how this varies over time.
Emma Bates
For the first example, here is the data for Emma Bates from 2022-23. She doesn’t share her activities publicly on Strava anymore, so this is the most recent data available.
She competed in three races in this time period – the World Championships (Eugene), New York City, and Boston.
In the lead up to the World Champs, she had several weeks in the 120’s – peaking at 126.8 a couple weeks before the race. Later that year, she also peaked at around 126 prior to New York city.
The following spring, she had a string of weeks at or around 120 miles per week leading up to Boston. She finished fifth that year with a time of 2:22:10 – which remains her best performance.
Dakota Popehn
Next, we’ve got Dakota Popehn. She had a busy two years – running six marathons, starting with Grandma’s in June 2023.
Before Grandma’s, she had a peak week at 118. I only gathered two years worth of data, so it doesn’t go back further in that training cycle. But I’d assume it followed a similar pattern to Chicago – where she ran a bunch of weeks at around 100mpw with one big peak week at 120.
Going into February, she bumped her mileage up. She had several weeks at 130 miles and more above 120. And it paid off – when she finished third at the Trials.
Leading up to the Olympics, she had a long string of weeks at around 120. There were a few weeks at 130, as well.
That was followed by an abbreviated training cycle for New York City – where she underperformed a bit. The buildup for Boston this year looked pretty similar to the buildup for the Olympics.
The Top American Men
On this chart, I’ve combined three of the top American men – Conner Mantz, Clayton Young, and CJ Albertson. You can click on their names in the legend to hide one or two of the lines.
Conner Mantz and Clayton Young are training partners. They run together a lot, and they race together a lot. So there’s a lot of overlap between their two graphs.
Early on, they look very similar – peaking at around 120 for several weeks in prior to the 2023 Chicago Marathon. In the lead up to the Olympic Trials, Conner ran a little more, and then they converged again at around 120 miles in the build for the Olympics.
In the most recent training block for Boston, Conner again ran a little more. He was above 110 most weeks, with a peak in the high 120’s. Clayton spent more time between 100-110, with fewer weeks up in the mid 120’s.
CJ Albertson had the highest peak of the three – 132 miles in mid October 2023. And they ran similar amounts in the lead ups to both the Olympic Trials and to the 2024 Chicago Marathon.
The big outlier is this spring – where CJ ran under 100mpw for most of the period leading up to Boston.
Tebello Ramakongoana
Tebello Ramakongoana came in 8th place at this year’s Boston Marathon. He’s run four marathons in the past two years, but his Strava data didn’t start until two months after he ran the Osaka Marathon.
In the build up to the Olympics, he hit 100 miles about half the time and 120 the other half. He came in 7th in that race – edging out Conner Mantz by 14 seconds.
For his next race – the Xiamen Marathon – he had some smaller weeks in the beginning. His peak was between 115 and 120 for four weeks.
And in the build up to Boston, he had the lowest string of weeks in this whole time period. He “only” ran ~110 or less, with only one week at 120.
John Korir
Finally, here’s the data on John Korir. I’ve included both his mileage (the bars) and his time (the line).
His biggest weeks came back in 2023. Although there do seem to be some flukes in the data. It looks like maybe he was sharing watches with someone else, and so some other activities might have synced to his account.
The week of 9/4/2023, he logged 210 miles. But on September 6, that included both a 17.5 mile run and a 15 mile run just hours apart. And on September 8, it included a 19 mile run and an 18.5 mile run less than an hour apart. And then on September 9, there’s a casual 27 mile run in 2:26. Something’s amiss there, so let’s just ignore those weeks.
In the lead up to Boston in 2024, he had some peak weeks in the 120 range. In terms of time, he was putting in 13-14 hours.
The build up to Chicago in 2024 looked similar. Peak weeks of 120-125, with 14-15 hours of running. That converted into a win – and a 2:02:44 finish.
But in the lead up to Boston this year, he bumped up the mileage significantly. Instead of the previous peak of 120-125, he had quite a few weeks in the 140’s.
And unlike the previous peaks, these look legit. Here’s an example from the week of February 24:
- Monday: Easy 6 (~8:00/mi) early morning, 13 @ ~6:00/mi later in the morning, easy 6 (~8:00/mi) in the evening
- Tuesday: 8x2k workout w/ 1 minute rest. 4:40/mi working down to 4:30/mi. Plus 2 miles easy warm up / cool down (above 8:00/mi) for a total of 14 miles. Then 6 easy miles for a double in the evening.
- Wednesday: 6 easy miles in the early morning, 14 in the late morning, and 6 in the evening.
- Thursday: 2 mile warm up, 15 mile tempo (5:00/mi down to 4:30/mi), 2 mile cooldown
- Friday: 9 miles easy in the early morning, 12 miles in the late morning, 6 miles in the evening
- Saturday: 25 miles @ 5:21/mi
- Sunday: Rest
Three triples, one double, a 19 mile tempo run, and a 25 mile long run.
All the hard work clearly paid off, because he looked super strong at the end of Boston pushing through the hills for a win.
So How Much Do the Elites Run?
In general, all of these runners ran over 100 miles per week during peak training.
The actual levels varied a little bit, but in most cases they fell within the span of 110 to 130 miles per week. John Korir was the only one who bumped up to 140 miles per week, and that was only in his most recent training block leading up to Boston.
Another trend you can see in the data is that in every case, they built that mileage up, only sustained peak mileage for a month or two, and then tapered off for races. That periodization is an interesting question in and of itself, and it’s worth digging into further another day.
In terms of time, peak weeks included anywhere from 12 to 15 hours of running. If you’re trying to replicate anything here, this is probably the most useful insight. Distance scales with time, and if you’re not running elite paces – it’s going to be hard to put in 120 miles. But regardless of your pace, you can put in 12 hours.
Did any of this surprise you? Did these guys and gals run more than you expected – or less?