Pace Expectations Vs. Finishes

Course time limits can vary widely, but the idea that 13:45 is a standard for what constitutes running does have some value, as 3:00 — the amount of time it takes to run 13.1 miles at 13:45 pace — is a common half-marathon time limit and many training plans for various distances top out with paces in that range.

Likewise, that translates to a 6:00 marathon, and many marathons have 6:00 or 6:30 as a cutoff. The NYRR data set doesn’t include half-marathon data, but since pace tends to slow with longer distances, looking at the paces road racers are competing at for shorter distances should, if anything, underestimate how many people are excluded by the 13:45 standard.

Across all the distances, more than 30,000 finishes were at paces slower than 13:45/mile, slightly more than 7 percent of the field.

Even the age groups for road racers younger than 60, there are people who finish at paces slower than 13:45.

But when we look at participants 60 and older, there is a much larger share who are finishing at those slower paces.

When we look just at finishes by runners 60 and older, we also see there are more men than women. That might reflect the greater opportunuties for people in this age bracket to try the sport in school, as many of the runners in this age group graduated high school before Title IX had equalized opportunities for women.