Finally, some proper data on midpack marathon runners

When we read that Eliud Kipchoge often logs more than 200km a week, we’re in awe of the figure – but how useful is it to our own running? As interesting as elite training can be, it can feel a world away from our own running schedule, which is often squeezed in around work and family commitments.

All of which makes a new marathon study so relevant – and fascinating. Instead of concentrating on Kipchoge and co., it looked at the Strava training data of more than 150,000 everyday marathoners. This ranged from the very quick (sub-2:30) to the more meandering (6:00-plus).

It studied this cohort, who had an average age of 40, over 16 weeks of marathon training – which is the standard length of many training plans. The researchers then correlated the training data to the runners’ actual finishing times (see table below).

Some of the findings are predictable. For example, those who racked up the most miles in training ran the fastest marathons. So, if you’re looking to break the magical three-hour mark, the data here suggests that you’ll likely need to be running more than 40 miles a week, over at least four weekly runs.

But there are some slightly surprising results, too. For example, runners finishing marathons between 4:00 and 4:30 averaged only about 20 miles a week in training. Those running between 3:30 and 4:00, meanwhile, covered (fittingly) an average of 26.2 miles a week – a substantial amount of running, but not an intimidating number for the committed marathoner. Plus, it’s less than what is suggested by many training plans.

That being said, there was a clear correlation between volume and faster times, as study author Dr Daniel Muniz-Pumares pointed out. ‘What this data shows is that what is true for the elites is also true for everyday runners: the more you run in training, the faster your marathon is likely to be,’ he said. ‘We don’t make causal links in the study, but however you look at it, the more you train – in terms of miles or frequency – the faster you’re likely to run the marathon.’

In terms of intensity, the authors divided runs into zones 1, 2 and 3. In general terms, Z1 was easy, Z2 moderate and Z3 hard. More specifically, the boundary between Z2 and Z3 was a runner’s ‘critical speed’, which can be very roughly defined as the top pace you could sustain for 60 minutes. The boundary between Z1 and Z2 was assumed to occur at 82.3% of a runner’s critical speed. So, for someone whose critical speed is 8min/miles or 5min/km, Z1 would constitute anything slower than 9:45min/miles or 6:04min/km.

‘We found that the time spent in Z2 and Z3 stayed fairly constant across the marathon finishing times,’ said Dr Muniz-Pumares. ‘But, Z1 is where we saw faster runners accumulate lots more training.’ In other words, people weren’t building volume and intensity. The extra miles were mostly easy.

As for the training model adapted by most, runners favoured the pyramid. ‘Something novel from the paper would be the lack of popularity of polarised training, even in the fastest runners within the sample. From this large dataset, most runners followed a pyramidal training intensity distribution.’ Pyramidal training is similar to polarised training, in that it includes a large amount of easy running, but tends to include more running at moderate intensity. Polarised training, meanwhile, tends to keep moderate intensity running to a complete minimum.