What’s the Average Marathon Time? The Numbers by Age and Sex

Ask how long a marathon takes and the honest answer is a little under four and a half hours. That was the median finish across roughly 400,000 U.S. marathoners in 2024, and the single number hides a lot: a gap of almost half an hour between men and women, times that change surprisingly little before your mid-40s, and a pile-up of finishers in the last few minutes before four hours. This is what the data says the typical runner does, along with the benchmarks people chase and a way to work out what a good time is for you.

The average marathon time

Brian Rock, who tracks the Boston Marathon cutoff every year, pulled results from about 250 U.S. marathons with at least 200 finishers in 2024, roughly 400,000 runners in all, and kept only each runner’s best time. The median finisher, the runner exactly in the middle of the field, took 4:25:33, or 10:08 per mile. The men’s median was 4:14 and the women’s was 4:41, which works out to 9:41 and 10:43 per mile (Running with Rock).

RunRepeat took a wider count, about 97 percent of all U.S. marathon results, and reports the mean instead of the median. Its 2024 average was 4:34, with men at 4:24 and women at 4:51 (RunRepeat). The average comes out about eight minutes slower, partly because the slowest finishers, some of them out on the course for six or seven hours, pull an average up far more than the fastest pull it down. That’s why the median is the better picture of the runner in the middle of the pack.

The biggest races land in the same place. The 328,485 finishers across the seven World Marathon Majors in 2026 averaged 4:25:17 (The Running Channel).

Boston is the outlier for an obvious reason. Most of its field had to run a qualifying time to get in, and for 2027 even a qualifying time wasn’t enough for 8,019 runners who missed the cutoff (B.A.A.). New York and Chicago lean on drawings, charity spots and their own time standards instead, and the entry guides for New York and Chicago walk through each route.

The results also show what runners are aiming for. In a study of 9.5 million marathon finishes, researchers found times bunching just under round numbers, with 51.4 percent more finishers in the minute before 3:00 than in the minute after, 21.7 percent more before 3:30 and 29.6 percent more before 4:00. Four hours drew the largest crowd of all, and the authors traced the bunching to effort rather than luck: runners close to a goal adjust their pace near the finish to get under it (Allen, Dechow, Pope and Wu).

Marathon times by age and sex

Age costs less in the marathon than most runners expect. RunRepeat’s averages separate runners from 18 to 44 by about 10 minutes, and the bigger steps don’t arrive until after 55 (RunRepeat).

Rock’s medians split the same picture by sex. Men aged 20 to 39 had a median of 4:06:08, and the fastest group of all was men 35 to 39 at 4:04:26. Women aged 20 to 39 came in at 4:32:41, led by women 20 to 24 at 4:28:48. By 60 to 64 the medians were 4:43:03 for men and 5:15:34 for women, roughly 40 to 45 minutes slower than the younger groups (Running with Rock).

The spread inside each group is wide. Among men in their 20s and 30s, the middle half of finishers ran between 3:31 and 4:48, and among women the same range ran from 3:56 to 5:14 (Running with Rock). The fastest 10 percent of men aged 30 to 34 finished in just under three hours or better, and the fastest 10 percent of women in the same group ran 3:27:46 or better (Marathon Handbook).

Keep in mind who these numbers describe. They’re people who trained for a marathon and finished one, a far fitter group than the population at large, so beating the median for your age is a genuinely good result, and missing it the first time is normal. The half marathon averages follow the same pattern, with the steps getting bigger after 50.

Are marathon times getting slower?

Over the long run, yes, and it’s the field that changed more than the runners in it. RunRepeat’s analysis of results going back to 1986 found the average marathon slowed from 3:52:35 in 1986 to 4:28:56 in 2001 and 4:32:49 in 2018. Its read is that individual runners didn’t get slower. The field got bigger and broader as more people took on the distance for the experience rather than for a time (RunRepeat).

The recent trend runs the other way. U.S. averages got slightly faster in every age group between 2019 and 2024, from 4:39 to 4:34 overall, while participation recovered to 432,562 runners, still about 13 percent below the 2014 peak (RunRepeat).

Benchmarks beyond the median

The median tells you where the middle of the field finishes. These are the marks runners actually build a season around.

Breaking four hours. The most popular goal in the sport asks for 9:09 per mile, and it’s where the most runners bunch: in the study above, 92,970 finishers crossed in the last minute before 4:00, against 71,682 in the minute after. It’s about 25 minutes faster than the overall median and 14 minutes faster than the men’s. The 4:00 goal page has every split and a plan for running it, and the marathon pace chart covers the goals on either side.

Qualifying for Boston. The B.A.A. standards start at 2:55 for men 18 to 34 and 3:25 for women and non-binary runners in the same group, then loosen with each five-year age group, to 3:30 and 4:00 at 55 to 59. Meeting the standard isn’t enough on its own. For 2027, qualifiers needed to be 5:17 under it to get in (B.A.A.). The Boston qualifying guide has every age group and how the cutoff works, and the Pace Lab has goal pages for several of the standards, from 3:00 to 4:00.

Age grading. Age grading compares your time with the standard for your age, sex and distance and turns it into a percentage. World Masters Athletics calls anything above 60 percent local class, above 70 regional class, above 80 national class and above 90 world class, with 100 percent at roughly world-record level (World Masters Athletics). It puts a 60-year-old’s 4:10 and a 30-year-old’s 3:40 on the same scale, and it shows whether you’re still improving even in the years when your times slow.

The world records. Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 at the London Marathon on April 26, 2026, which works out to 4:33 per mile and made him the first man to break two hours in a record-eligible marathon. Yomif Kejelcha finished 11 seconds behind him in 1:59:41 (World Athletics). Tigst Assefa set a women-only record of 2:15:41 in the same race, and World Athletics ratified both marks in July (World Athletics). The fastest women’s time overall is still Ruth Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 from Chicago in 2024, which stands despite her later doping ban because it was set before the positive test (Al Jazeera).

How long does it take to run a marathon?

For most people, between four and five hours. The 2024 medians were 4:14 for men and 4:41 for women.

Walking takes a good deal longer. At 15 minutes per mile a marathon takes 6:33:17, at 18 minutes it takes 7:51:56 and at 20 minutes it takes 8:44:23. Check the time limit before you enter, because big-city races close their courses. Chicago gives runners six and a half hours, with the official end vehicle moving at 15 minutes per mile (NBC Chicago). Honolulu is the famous exception, with no cutoff at all and final finishers arriving 15 to 18 hours after the start (Honolulu Marathon).

What’s a good marathon time for you

The medians are useful context and a poor way to choose a goal. A good time for you is the one your current training supports, and the best evidence for it is a recent race. Greg McMillan’s rule of thumb is to double your half marathon time and add seven minutes, or five if you’re the kind of runner who gets relatively better as races get longer (McMillan Running). By that rule, a 1:45 half points to about 3:37 and a 2:00 half to about 4:07.

Treat that as the best case. When researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering checked race predictions against 2,303 recreational runners, the Riegel formula, which predicts much the same as McMillan’s rule, gave marathon times at least 10 minutes too fast for half of them. Weekly mileage mattered a lot: training 50 miles a week instead of 30 was associated with marathons about 26 minutes faster for men and 32 minutes faster for women (Vickers and Vertosick, 2016). If your mileage is on the lower side, add more time than the calculators do. Each goal page in the Pace Lab checks your goal against a recent race with both Riegel’s formula and Jack Daniels’ VDOT, and How to Choose a Marathon Training Plan covers how much running each of the main plans asks of you.

Then run the race evenly. In Barry Smyth’s analysis of more than four million marathon results, 28 percent of men and 17 percent of women hit the wall, slowing by at least a quarter for 5K or more after the 20K mark, and it cost them more than half an hour on average (Smyth, 2021). Starting a little slower than goal pace, and practicing goal pace late in your long runs, is how you keep the time your training earned. The race week guide covers the last seven days.

FAQ

Is a 4-hour marathon good?

Yes. It’s faster than the 2024 U.S. median of 4:25:33, so it beats more than half of all finishers, and it’s faster than both the men’s median of 4:14 and the women’s of 4:41. It’s also the most popular goal time in the sport.

What is the average marathon time for men?

The median for U.S. men in 2024 was 4:14, or 9:41 per mile. Men aged 35 to 39 had the fastest median, at 4:04:26.

What is the average marathon time for women?

The median for U.S. women in 2024 was 4:41, or 10:43 per mile. Women aged 20 to 24 had the fastest median, at 4:28:48.

What is the average marathon pace?

About 10:08 per mile, or 6:18 per kilometer, for the 2024 median finish of 4:25:33.

What is a good marathon time for a beginner?

One you can run at an even effort from start to finish. To put a number on it, double a recent half marathon time and add seven minutes, then add more if your weekly mileage is modest.

How long does it take to walk a marathon?

Between about 6.5 and 8.75 hours at a steady 15 to 20 minutes per mile. Check the course time limit first, since many races close the course sooner than that.