The New York City Marathon: How Have the Field and Times Changed?

Runners at the Boston Marathon are speeding up. Is the same thing true of runners at the New York City Marathon? Let’s look at the data.

Photo by Spencer Imbrock on Unsplash

I’m working on a project to analyze trends in finishing times among marathon runners over the last few decades.

This project was inspired by an article published by Run Repeat, entitled “American Runners Have Never Been Slower (Mega Study).” I took issue with one of their conclusions — that the trend towards slower finishing times was occurring across the board, and that serious runners at the front of the pack were also getting slower.

You can read more about the background in this introductory post. But the main question I’m investigating is, “Have serious runners at the front of the pack gotten slower in recent years?”

I started this project by looking at the data from the Boston Marathon, and this week I’ll be exploring data from the New York City Marathon.

Not a Medium subscriber? Click here, and I’ll email you a special link to get behind the paywall and read this article.

A Quick Recap of the Boston Data