RunTri

New York City Marathon: Average Finish Times by Age Group

In 2009, the overall average time for 43,250 finishers was 4:24. This time makes New York City Marathon among the faster of our Top 25 Toughest marathons. Below, our analysis of average finish time by Age Group. Also see our analysis of number of finishers by age group, and our Complete New York City Marathon Coverage.

Wall Street Journal Features RunTri's Olympic Marathon Trials Analytics

Kevin Helliker, the Wall Street Journal's Pulitzer Prize-winning Sports Journalist, has written about the drive and determination of runners who aspire to simply qualify for the USA's Olympic Marathon Trials. For these runners, most of whom don't have a chance of making the Olympic Team, qualifying to run in the trials is the ultimate reward.

Kevin featured our analysis of Chicago Marathon athletes trying to run qualifying times for upcoming Olympic Trials (2011 results) compared to the number of runners finishing around qualifying range in a non-Olympic Trials year.

Our findings were that 30% more runners with the capability to qualify for the Trials ran Chicago in 2011, compared to those in 2012.

Excerpts are below. Read the Wall Street Journal article in full. For further details, see our comprehensive Chicago Marathon Coverage: Results Analysis, Advice, Photos and more.

... Excerpt ...

Ironman Wisconsin 2015 Results Analysis: Overall, by Division, by Splits; Correlation b/w Bike and RunTimes

By Raymond Britt

Despite a beautiful day with ideal race conditions, our results analysis indicates the 2015 edition of Ironman Wisconsin was, counterintuitively, the slowest/toughest since 2009, with an average finish time of 13 hours 33 minutes. By contrast, the 2013 IM WI averaged 13 hours, 14 minutes.

Fast Facts, with detailed charts below:

Finishers: 2,558; DNS = 16%, DNF = 6%
Average Finish Time Overall: 13:33; Compare vs avg time for all Ironmans = 12:35
Average Swim: 1:21 = 10% of average total time
Average Bike: 6:42 = 49% of average total
Average Run: 5:09 = 38% of total
Average Transition: 0:20 = 3%
Correlation Between Bike and Run r-squared: 0.24 = low correlation = more than normal difficulty for many athletes seeking to find the right balance between bike and run effort
Finishers in Final Hour: 239, vs 165 in 2013, further indicating more suffered on the run

Our theory regarding the slower average time is one you might not expect: that because conditions were optimal, athletes may have unconsciously felt encouraged to ride the bike course faster than normal.

I've finished Ironman Wisconsin 5 times, and know very well: the bike course is deceptively difficult, and those who go out too fast tend to suffer on the run. That's what we saw in 2015, indicated by the lower correlation between bike and run splits. (also see our analysis of finishers per hour, further below).