A Statistical Timetable for the Sub-2-Hour Marathon

Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise
Simon D Angus

Abstract

Breaking the sub-2-h marathon in an official event has attracted growing interest in recent times with commercial and international momentum building. Here it is shown that predicting how likely and when the sub-2-h barrier will be broken are statistically coupled considerations. Using a nonlinear limiting exponential model and calculating prediction intervals, a statistical timetable for the sub-2-h event is produced over a range of likelihoods. At the benchmark odds level (1 in 10, or 10% likely), the expected sub-2-h arrival time is found to be May 2032. By estimating the model for male and female world record progressions, I find that limiting marathon times for males and females (at 1 in 10) are 1 h 58 min 5 s and 2 h 5 min 31 s, respectively. These times equate to a performance gap of 2.9% and 8.6%, respectively. The male estimate has remarkable similarity (~7 s) to Joyner's 1991 limiting human physiological estimate. Finally, I provide an estimate of the equivalent "sub-2-h" threshold for females and argue that a threshold of 130 min ("sub-130") could be an appropriate choice. The study is the first to address all three related aspects of world record marathon performance (sub-2 h, limits, gender equivalence) in a single...Continue Reading

References

Jan 2, 1992·Nature·B J Whipp, S A Ward
Feb 1, 1991·Journal of Applied Physiology·M J Joyner
Nov 2, 2005·Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise·Alan M Nevill, Gregory Whyte
Dec 2, 2008·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Mark W Denny
Aug 7, 2010·Journal of Applied Physiology·M J JoynerA Lucia
Nov 7, 2013·Journal of Sports Sciences·Andy MarcJean-François Toussaint
Nov 20, 2014·PloS One·Timothy N KruseMichael J Joyner
Dec 20, 2014·Journal of Applied Physiology·Sandra K HunterAndrew M Jones
Jan 13, 2015·Current Sports Medicine Reports·E Randy Eichner
Jun 20, 2015·European Journal of Sport Science·Martin WeissStephan Weiss
Dec 15, 2016·International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance·Ross Tucker, Jordan Santos-Concejero
Aug 15, 2018·Open Access Journal of Sports Medicine·Caio Victor SousaBeat Knechtle

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Software Mentioned

Matlab
fitnlm

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