Are We Getting Slower?

It's a discussion I had with my running partners a few days ago: Why has the national average finish time for marathons been moving up in recent years? I think I have the answer.

About 10 years ago running a marathon changed from a race to an accomplishment. Thirty years ago the people who ran marathons were pure runners. They raced against each other and themselves. Merely finishing was not the goal; their goal was to be faster. There's absolutely nothing wrong with just wanting to finish a marathon, but I think the masses of new runners who only have that goal are pushing up the averages. Regardless, below you can find a bunch of interesting data on marathon runners from 2006, separated by gender and age.

2006 Overall Demographics

	Percent	Avg. Age	Avg. Time
Men	60.1%	40.7	4:31:26
Women	39.9%	36.4	5:06:36
All Runners	100.0%	38.9	4:45:29

Women's Age Group Breakdown

Age Group	Avg. Time	Percent
0-19	5:46:36	0.74%
20-24	5:00:03	3.88%
25-29	4:58:41	7.34%
30-34	5:02:41	6.57%
35-39	4:56:51	6.56%
40-44	4:57:31	5.94%
45-49	5:11:03	4.26%
50-54	5:26:58	2.60%
55-59	5:47:40	1.23%
60-64	6:04:20	0.55%
65-69	6:23:07	0.18%
70+	6:40:18	0.07%

2006 Finishing Times

Finish Time	Total	%	Female	%	Male	%
2:30:01-2:59:59	7,025	1.8%	563	0.4%	6,462	2.7%
3:30:00-3:59:59	78,419	19.7%	23,100	14.6%	55,319	23.2%
4:30:00-5:00:00	73,629	18.5%	32,874	20.7%	40,755	17.1%
5:30:00-5:59:59	30,336	7.6%	16,034	10.1%	14,302	6.0%
6:30:00-6:59:59	11,364	2.9%	7,092	4.5%	4,272	1.8%
7:30:00-7:59:59	3,819	1.0%	2,386	1.5%	1,433	0.6%
8:30:04-8:59:59	1,216	0.3%	685	0.4%	531	0.2%
Total	397,116	100%	158,449	100%	238,668	100%