The New York City Marathon (now known as TCS NYC Marathon) requires little introduction: it is the largest Marathon in the world with more than 50,000 participants each year.

Held every first Sunday of November, it was first run in 1970 and 127 runners participated. Only 55 runners crossed the finish line and the winner was Gary Muhrcke with a time of 2:31:38.

NYC Marathon: the course



(Image credit: citycoach.org)

Since 1976, the race crosses all the 5 boroughs of NYC, starting in Staten Island, through Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and ending in Manhattan inside Central Park.

30 Years of results: a statistical analysis

We partnered with Andrew Ndikom of Statskom, a London-based statistics and analysis company, to analyse the results of the last 30 years of NYC Marathon results.

Looking at each measure such as finishing times, gender, ages, country of origin we try and tell the story of this incredible race through its numbers.

All the statistical analysis was performed using the WPS software package.

We hope you’ll find the results interesting: it was long, hard work and we enjoyed it tremendously.

Demographics

Overall

The 2014 marathon had circa 50, 000 participants, this was nearly 200% higher than the 1985 marathon which had circa 15 000 participants.

The number of participants has increased every year with the exception of 2001, where participant numbers declined, presumably as a result of 9/11.

Gender

The proportion of female participants has tended to increase over time. In the initial marathon 16% of participants were female, in the 2014 marathon 40% of participants were female. The below graph shows the percentage breakdown of participants by gender.

Citizenship

In the 1985 marathon, 70% of the participants were US citizens, since then the proportion of participants from the US has decreased, and has been circa 50% since the mid-nineties.

Outside of the USA, the countries with the highest number of entrants are all in Europe, North and Central America. The below table list the ten countries with the highest number of entrants by citizenship.

Age Category

In the 1985 marathon, 63% of the participants were aged 18-39, since then the proportion of participants in the veteran (40-49 years) and super veteran (50 and over) groups has increased.

Average Race Times

Gender

Median race times , i.e. the time in which the middle or average runner finishes the race have tended to get slower both for men and women, perhaps because the proportion of entrants in the older age categories has increased.

It is interesting to note that the races during 2003- 2005 (inclusive) seem to have had median times which were particularly slow when judged against the long term trend.

Age Group

Plots 6a and 6b show that median race times in each age group have tended to increase, albeit slightly, over time.

An interesting fact is that the median times in the standard and veteran age groups have tended to converge.

Citizenship

Median times from non US citizens for men have been consistently faster than the times of US citizens, whereas for female runners there is no discernible pattern.

Elite race times

Although there is no universally accepted definition of “elite”, it is usually accepted that elite runners are the competitors that compete for the overall win of the race. For our analysis, we considered Elite the top 100 finishers in each race.

The NYC marathon has such a high participation that its median results are quite slow. But how do the elite perform in this race? And more importantly – how, if at all, has their performance evolved in the past 30 years ?

Winning Times by Gender

Both male and female winning times have tended to get faster over the years. The lines of best fit show the long term trends.

The decrease in female times (long term trend of 8.7 seconds per year) has been greater than the decrease in male times (long term trend of 6.7 seconds per year), suggesting that the leading female athletes are improving at a faster rate than the leading male athletes.

(long term trend of 8.7 seconds per year) (long term trend of 6.7 seconds per year), suggesting that than the leading male athletes. Margaret Okayo’s winning time in the women’s race from 2003 (2:22:31) and Geoffrey Mutai’s 2011 time in the men’s race (2:05:06) are particularly remarkable, not only because they are the course records but also because they significantly faster than what the long term trend might expect the race times to have been in that particular year.

Winners by Age Category

Every winner in the last 29 years has been in the 18-39 years old age category, with the exception of Priscilla Welch who won the 1987 female race with a time of 2:30 aged 42.

Fastest race times split by gender and age category

Fastest times by male athletes in the veteran (40-49) and super-veteran (50+) have increased very slightly over the years (as shown by the line of best fit in Plot 9a),

whereas for female runners, the fastest times in the veteran and super-veteran categories have tended to become faster over time.

Mean times by age group

Looking at elite athletes, i.e. the top 100 finishers by gender, it’s interesting to note that the mean finishing time for women has become faster over the years whereas for men it has actually increased.

Winners by Citizenship

In the last 29 years citizens of 14 countries have won the women’s race, while citizens of 11 different countries have won the men’s race.

Kenyan athletes have overwhelmingly dominated both the men’s (12 out of last 29 winners) and women’s (8 out of 29 winners) competition.

Excluding Kenyan athletes, only a few countries have produced more than one winner of either the men’s or women’s race and in most of these instances, it is the same athlete from a given country who has won multiple times . For example, three of the four British Women’s wins were from Paula Radcliffe, while three of the four Norwegian women wins were from Grete Weitz.

. For example, three of the four British Women’s wins were from Paula Radcliffe, while three of the four Norwegian women wins were from Grete Weitz. What makes the Kenyan results even more impressive is the very small number of Kenyans who have entered the competition, there have been only 225 Kenyan male entrants and 79 Kenyan women in total since 1985.

Winning females overall position

There is a definite trend in the first place female athlete’s overall finishing position improving over time.

In 2007 Paula Radcliffe finished with the 17th fastest time overall, the highest placed female finisher thus far.

The question is whether or not female athletes will continue to improve at a faster rate than their male counterparts. Plot 11 seems to suggest that the long term improvement in the first place female’s overall position is tended to level off.

Summary