The 2023 California International Marathon By the Numbers

Did it live up to its name, ‘The Fastest Course in the West?’

Photo by Capstone Events on Unsplash

Earlier this month, thousands of runners flocked to Sacramento to participate in the California International Marathon (CIM).

The race, known as the ‘fastest course in the West,’ is often targeted by serious runners as an opportunity to OTQ — to run a qualifying time for the U.S. Olympic Trials. For others, it’s a chance to squeeze out the last few minutes to hit a Boston qualifying time.

So did the 40th running of the California International Marathon live up to its name?

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I collected the results of this year’s race and combined them with the results from previous editions of CIM to explore the data. Note that this year’s data was collected from Athlinks, and data for 2000 to 2022 was collected from Marathon Guide.

A Deep Dive Into Marathon Data