World’s Fastest Recreational Runners

opus

Google suggested this to me as I was killing time in an airport earlier, interesting analysis of ~million recreational runners at marathons.

NY Times article
World’s Fastest Recreational Runners

Ireland is mid-table with an average of 4:17:06 with Spain on top with 3:55:35.

ger664

Not really surprised to see Spain has the lowest Female Runners. In Sevillie last year there was only 8% of the field Female and a distinct lack of Porto Potties at the start.

rom

Irish times 13 mins faster from 2009 to 2014. During the same time its about 1 min of a difference in the UK. Perhaps its due to the big charity side of races in the UK.

Murph_D

The sampling period seems to coincide with Iceland's economic crisis - wonder if that has anything to do with their fast marathon times...

rom

Maybe its due to the case that there are only 3 marathons in Iceland. Two are them a linked to a radio station and these two started in 2011. The other marathon has been going since the 80's. All 3 marathons are flat. Most of the runners in the long established race are not from Iceland. 161 of 877 runners. The population of Iceland is 300,000. Say if you had only 161 runners from Cork doing the Cork marathon would would be similar scale you would expect most to be club runners. A single club in Cork could have 100 runners in the Ballycotton 10 for example and Cork ain't hugely popular for the time of year but living on an Island and the main race of the year you are not going to be not doing it.

Murph_D

The sample is based on declared nationality of runners participating in Chicago, Marine, Boston, London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Athens, Amsterdam, Budapest, Warszawa and Madrid marathons (no Icelandic or Irish ones!)

seamus

I wonder what impact sample size and popularity has on the averages.

That is, if the sample sizes for a particular country are small and/or the sport isn't that popular in that country, then it's quite likely that the runners in the sample are more likely to be dedicated enthusiasts than casual amateurs, and as such their performances will average out better.

Chivito550

Murph_D wrote: »

The sample is based on declared nationality of runners participating in Chicago, Marine, Boston, London, Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt, Athens, Amsterdam, Budapest, Warszawa and Madrid marathons (no Icelandic or Irish ones!)

Yeh silly list tbh. Only semi serious runners from Ireland, Iceland or whatever other country not in the above would travel to those marathons, hence a higher average.

Not sure of the purpose of working out which country has a better average anyway. Does it really matter that one country has an average of 3:55 while another has 4:05? They are all really slow averages regardless and proves very little.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

Yeh silly list tbh. Only semi serious runners from Ireland, Iceland or whatever other country not in the above would travel to those marathons, hence a higher average.

Not sure of the purpose of working out which country has a better average anyway. Does it really matter that one country has an average of 3:55 while another has 4:05? They are all really slow averages regardless and proves very little.

Another example of a waste of money, survey company happy though

Itziger

Well, all I can say is I'm almost certainly the most influential Boardsie in that report - and probably by a long way as well. As I reside in Lux, I sometimes count as a 'Luxembourg' runner and my relatively humble times are still good enough to affect the average, seeing as the Grand Duchy would be one of the smallest cohorts on the list.

In Valencia a couple of years ago, the local rag published finishers by nation and a few friends of mine got a kick out of seeing the 'Burger list. I was number one of 5!! with 3.12 iirc.

As for Chivito's point. As ever, slow is relative. Sure they're slow compared to the elites and, more importantly, to the Krustys of this world. Heck, they're even slow compared to my times, but they are what they are. I've seen dumber reports and ones that were bigger wastes of money. These are informative. Not sure they're supposed to 'prove' anything.