Last week, I published a brief analysis of the Valencia Marathon’s field – comparing it to other large races like Berlin, Chicago, and London.
The takeaway – the Valencia Marathon has more sub-3:00 finishers than any other race in the world. Drilling down to young men, it has a very high percentage of runners going sub-3:00. And the trends hold for faster times, like 2:45 and 2:30.
When I shared the analysis, the discussion around what made Valencia so special included a few common themes:
- The course is flat (and fast)
- The weather is good
- The race has a low cut-off (5:30) and quick pacers (2:50)
- Runners choose Valencia for personal bests – not bucket lists
- The race is increasingly a destination race for foreign runners
Someone also suggested that the Majors – like Berlin, Chicago, and London – weren’t the best point of comparison, because those fields attract a lot of first timers and casual runners. So other “fast” marathons would be a better comparison.
Based on some suggestions, and a couple additions of my own, I came up with a list of eight other fast races to compare Valencia to. Five of them are in Europe (Seville, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, and Copenhagen) and three of them are in the United States (CIM, Grandma’s, Houston).
I gathered the results of the 2024 race for each of these races and put together a few quick comparisons below.
How Big Are These Races?
First, let’s set a little context by looking at the size and composition of the fields at each of these races.
The visual below shows the total size of the field for each race, broken down into three categories – men under 45, men 45 and older, and women.
Valencia is alone at the top of the chart. It had about 28,000 finishers this year.
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen are all large races. But with 15,000 to 16,000 finishers each, they are a step down in size from Valencia.
Frankfurt and Seville each have around 10,000 finishers. And the American races – CIM, Grandma’s and Houston, have about 7,000 to 8,000.
There are only a handful of truly large races – 30,000 or more finishers – in the world, and Valencia sits right on the cusp of that category. These other races, especially when you get down to Frankfurt, are in an entirely different category.
Demographically, it’s also worth pointing out that Valencia has one of the lowest shares of women in the field – 22%. The only race with fewer women is Seville – at 17.2%.
The American races vary from 33% to 42% women, while the other European races vary from 23% to 27%.
How Many Sub-3:00 Finishers Does Each Race Have?
Let’s start by looking at the entire field, without disaggregating things by age or gender.
The visual below shows the absolute number of runners finishing sub-3:00 (the purple bars) and the percent of the field (the blue line).
In terms of actual numbers, Valencia dwarfs the field with about 5,000. Seville is next, with a little over 1,500. It’s less than a third.
The rest of the field trails off after that. The three big races – Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen – rank below Seville and CIM, despite being much larger races.
In terms of percentages, there are a few standouts.
Valencia is still the highest, with 18.4% of the field finishing sub-3:00. Seville comes next with 17.1%. CIM is a relatively close third with 14.6%.
Frankfurt is the only other race with anywhere near the same rate – at 10.3%.
The rest of the races are in the single digits, from 5.9% to 7.6%.
What If We Drill Down to Young Men?
The demographic differences between the races can drive some differences in finish times. So let’s drill down to men under the age of 45 – the age group most likely to finish sub-3:00.
The visual below is set up the same as the previous one, except it excludes men 45 and up and women.
At first glance, it looks fairly similar. The purple bars follow the same pattern – Valencia has way more finishers than any other race, with Seville coming in a distant second place.
When you look at the percentages, though, you can start to tease out the story a bit.
Valencia still has the highest rate, with 29.2%. Seville is not far behind, with 26.7%. And CIM, once you exclude the older men and the women, comes in a closer third (25%).
The next three are still in the same order – Frankfurt, Grandma’s, and Houston – but Grandma’s and Houston have inched closer to Frankfurt.
Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen still sit at the bottom of the list.
What About the Other X-Factors?
So what distinguishes these races from each other?
The fact that Valencia has a flat course and good weather is a common explanation for why it’s a fast race. And surely that sets it apart from some other races. But Grandma’s and Houston are also flat courses with good weather. Even CIM, with fairly substantial elevation loss, doesn’t rate as highly.
It’s true that Valencia has a 5:30 cutoff time, which could discourage some slower runners from registering. But Seville – the next fastest – has a 6:00 cutoff time. Rotterdam – one of the slowest on the list – also has a 5:30 cutoff time. The rest all seem to be about 6 hours.
The pace teams are a distinguishing factor. Valencia has a 2:50 pacer and Seville has one at 2:45. CIM and Houston have pacers at 2:55, and the rest seem to have pace groups that start at 3:00. Is this a cause or a consequence of the field?
What about whether or not runners are targeting personal bests – instead of phoning it in? While some of the bigger European races might attract some casual runners, Grandma’s is a good example of a race that sells out quickly and attracts committed, serious, runners. But that’s still not creating a field with 30% of the young men finishing under three hours.
And then there’s the increased popularity factor – especially amongst foreign runners.
When you compare Valencia 2019 to 2024, a little over half of the field was Spanish in 2019 and it’s down to about a third in 2024. So there is definitely a shift towards more foreign runners.
In 2024, 38% of men were Spanish, followed by 16% French, 6.8% British, and 6.4% Italian. Don’t blame the Americans – because there were only 203 men from the U.S.
On the women’s side, even fewer runners are from Spain. 22% are Spanish, followed by 15% French, 7.6% British, and 7.0% Italian.
So to the extent that there’s a shift, and if these additional foreign runners are all fast, that could explain some of the difference between 2019 (when ~15% of young men finished sub-3:00) and 2024 (when ~30% did).
But I checked the demographics of Seville to see what that field looked like. And 66% of the men there were from Spain, so there’s a much smaller international component. Frankfurt, the next fastest European race, is also about two thirds German. And CIM is over 90% American.
The Bottom Line on the Valencia Marathon
The men’s field at the Valencia Marathon is fast.
Whether you compare it to other massive races – like Berlin, Chicago, and London – or medium to large races – like Seville, Frankfurt, and CIM – Valencia has more total runners and a higher percentage of men under 45 who finish under three hours.
When you consider the total number of runners who finish under three hours, Berlin and Boston are the closest. In the case of Berlin, that’s thanks in part to a field that included almost 25,000 additional runners. And at Boston, that’s thanks to the selection effect of qualifying times, where by definition most of the young men in the race are capable of running under three hours.
When you consider the percentage of young men who finish under three hours, Seville comes the closest. It’s a little lower than Valencia, but it’s pretty close. And unlike CIM – which also has a high rate of runners finishing sub-3:00 – Seville doesn’t have a significant elevation loss.
The why of this is more complicated. Most of the explanations help understand why Valencia is faster than some slower races – like the Los Angeles or Honolulu Marathons. But few of them really explain why Valencia is so much faster than other fast races – which share a lot of the same characteristics.
I think it comes down to a combination of things, starting with the conditions for good racing and then adding in the recent surge in popularity among foreign runners.