Marathon Comparisons: Chicago, New York City, Marine Corps

More than 100,000 runners choose to run the Chicago Marathon, New York City Marathon or the Marine Corps Marathon. Which of the three is fastest? We ran the numbers by age group for each race, and here are the results.

 

Chicago Marathon 2011: Fastest US Cities and States

Which major cities had the fastest runners at the 2011 Chicago Marathon? Of these 25 major cities with 10,000 runners (7,000 from Chicago), the Top 5 Fastest cities were New York City, Portland, Minneapolis, Arlington VA and Washington DC. Notable mention goes to cities with many fewer finishers but impressive times, e.g., Annapolis (3:47), Philadelphia (4:07)and Anchorage (4:14).

Which states were fastest? Slowest? Top 5 fastest states were North Dakota, Wyoming, Oregon, Delaware and Vermont. Slowest runners were from Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona, Arkansas and Alabama. The average time for Illinois was the slowest overall, but that is due, of course, to a significant number of first-time marathoners whose times skew results.

Fastest City in the World? See our Interactive Global Map featuring finishers and average times for 6000 cities. For more, see our Complete Chicago Marathon Coverage.

Chicago Marathon 2011 Interactive Map: Average Finish Time by City

Nearly 36,000 runners from about 6000 cities across the globe finished the 2011 Chicago Marathon in an average time of 4:40. But the times of course varied by geography. We calculated the number of finishers and average finish time for each of those 6000 cities and embedded them into eight maps below: North America, Chicago Area, Midwest, East Coast, South Central, West Coast, Europe, and the entire globe.

Scroll, zoom and click on the green dots to reveal the city's Chicago Marathon stats. Also see our Top 25 Cities Finish Time Comparisons and our Complete Chicago Marathon Coverage.

North America Chicago Area Midwest East Coast South Central West Coast Europe Global