Table of Contents
How long does it take an ordinary person to run a marathon? Looking for an answer, we turned to the largest published studies, which between them cover more than 118 million race results.
The figures below cover the worldwide averages, the fastest countries, the US numbers by sex and by age, median times at the Majors, and the age at which runners are quickest.
If you are curious where your own result fits, read on.
Average marathon time worldwide
The worldwide average marathon finish is 4:32:49, based on results through 2018.
By age, the published brackets look like this:
- Under 30: about 4:32
- 30 to 50: about 4:24
- 50 to 60: about 4:34
- Over 70: about 5:40
Runners between 30 and 50 record the quickest average of any bracket, and the large change comes after 60. The report publishes selected brackets, so the years between 60 and 70 are absent from the figures above.
Those worldwide numbers combine every country in the dataset, and the national figures fall a long way apart.
Average marathon times by country
The table shows the three quickest countries overall, and the three quickest for men and for women.
| All runners | Men | Women | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Spain, 3:53:59 | Spain, 3:49:21 | Switzerland, 4:04:31 |
| 2 | Switzerland, 3:55:12 | Portugal, 3:55:10 | Iceland, 4:13:51 |
| 3 | Portugal, 3:59:31 | Norway, 3:55:14 | Ukraine, 4:14:10 |
Curiously, the countries with the quickest averages are not the ones with the most marathon runners: that distinction goes to Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands.
The United States has a dataset of its own, more recent and large enough to break down in detail. We start with sex.
Average marathon time in the US by sex
The average across all US finishers is 4:34.
American men average 4:24 and American women average 4:51. The gap between men and women is 27 minutes.
It is worth noting that an average by sex describes a field, and it predicts nothing about one runner. In any large race many women finish ahead of most of the men, and the two groups overlap heavily through the middle of the pack.
Average marathon time in the US by age
| Age group | Average finish time |
|---|---|
| 18 to 24 | 4:19 |
| 25 to 34 | 4:27 |
| 35 to 44 | 4:29 |
| 45 to 54 | 4:38 |
| 55 to 64 | 4:58 |
| 65+ | 5:35 |
Three interesting patterns in this table caught our attention:
- Every group under 55 averages between 4:19 and 4:38.
- The 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 groups are two minutes apart, so a decade of age makes almost no difference there.
- Each step after 55 costs more than the entire spread of the younger groups: 20 minutes to reach the 55 to 64 bracket, then another 37 to reach 65 and over.
On top of that, the same report shows that every age group got quicker between 2019 and 2024, with the 35 to 44 group improving most, by 2.0%.
Finish times at the World Marathon Majors
The figures below are median finish times for recreational runners at six of the World Marathon Majors, published by World Athletics from the 2023 and 2024 editions. Sydney and Cape Town joined the series after this analysis was carried out, so they are not included into the table.
| Marathon | Median finish time |
|---|---|
| Boston | about 3:43 |
| Berlin | about 4:02 |
| Chicago | about 4:12 |
| London | about 4:20 |
| Tokyo | about 4:20 |
| New York | about 4:32 |
Boston is the quickest of the six because of the qualifying times. The other Majors admit most of their runners through ballots and charity places, which widens the range of ability on the start line.
Keep in mind that these are medians. A median falls in the middle of the field, so half the runners finish quicker and half slower.
Now that the averages are on the table, we can look at what recreational runners treat as a fast marathon.
What counts as a fast marathon time
For most recreational runners, breaking four hours is the first big marathon goal. It puts you 34 minutes ahead of the US average. Sub-3:30 and sub-3:00 are the two markers after that, 64 and 94 minutes ahead of the average.
Beyond those round numbers, the clearest benchmark among amateurs is a Boston qualifying time, because it adjusts for age and sex. For the 2027 race, a man aged 18 to 34 needs 2:55:00 and a woman of the same age needs 3:25:00. At 50 to 54 those standards become 3:20:00 and 3:50:00. At 70 to 74 they are 4:20:00 and 4:50:00. Running your standard means you are fast for your age.
Related: What's a Good First Marathon Time?
Only a few marathons in the world set a qualifying standard at all, Boston the best known among them. Alongside them runs a universal system, used across athletics, called age grading. It compares your finish with the fastest marathon ever run by a person of your age and sex, and turns the comparison into a percentage.
For example, a 3:45 at 55 and a 3:15 at 30 score about the same, which means those two runners performed equally well for their ages.
To find your own figure, enter your finish time into an age-grading calculator built on the World Masters Athletics tables. Many race results pages show the number for you automatically.
Among the world's elite, marathon times are much quicker than anything in the amateur ranges above. Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 at the 2026 London Marathon, the first sub-two-hour marathon in a record-eligible race. Ruth Chepngetich holds the women's world record at 2:09:56 from the 2024 Chicago Marathon, and Tigst Assefa holds the women-only record at 2:15:41, also from London in 2026.
Those benchmarks adjust for age because age changes the numbers, and the research shows when runners are at their best.
When marathon runners are at their fastest
A study of 387,222 Berlin Marathon finishers put the quickest age at 32 for women and 34 for men.
What is more interesting is how slowly performance falls away after that. Women aged 60 to 64 and men aged 55 to 59 still ran at about 90% of the speed they would have reached at their peak age. Peak age has stayed where it is. The averages around it have moved a long way.
How marathon times have changed over recent decades
Worldwide, the average marathon time rose by 36 minutes between 1986 and 2001, from 3:52:35 to 4:28:56. Since 2001 it has moved by only 4 minutes, to 4:32:49.
Both sexes slowed over those years: men went from 3:48:15 in 1986 to 4:15:13 in 2001, and women from 4:18:00 to 4:56:18. What changed after 2001 is that women started getting quicker again, while men did not.
The average has slowed because the race has opened up, which is a good thing for the sport. More slower runners now enter marathons, and more people run for health and enjoyment rather than for a result.
Sources
- Worldwide figures: analysis of 107.9 million race results from about 70,000 events, 2018 figures (RunRepeat, The State of Running).
- US figures: analysis of 10,482,628 US marathon results from 6,352 events, 2024 figures (RunRepeat, The State of US Marathons).
- Median finish times for recreational runners at the World Marathon Majors: analysis by World Athletics of the 2024 Tokyo, Boston, London and Berlin marathons and the 2023 Chicago and New York marathons. Figures are approximate, read from the published time distributions.
- Qualifying standards for the 2027 Boston Marathon, published by the Boston Athletic Association.
- Peak age data: analysis of 387,222 Berlin Marathon finishers, 2008 to 2018.
