On Sunday, hundreds of keen marathoners from throughout the globe took the streets of Valencia, Spain, with the purpose of a speedy ending time on one of many world’s quickest programs. A sub-three-hour marathon time is a benchmark many aspire to realize, however it wouldn’t have gotten runners so far as they assume.
This 12 months’s Valencia Trinidad Alfonso Zurich Marathon noticed a report variety of finishers below the three-hour mark. In the event you ran 2:59:59 on the dot, it might have positioned you in 5,2 hundredth out of 28,000 finishers. Compared, the identical time on the 2024 Toronto Waterfront Marathon would have positioned you 293rd general–and a pair of,660th on the 2024 Boston Marathon, which exhibits Valencia’s unbelievable depth.
Though the race noticed a report variety of sub-three finishers, solely 512 runners went below two hours and half-hour, with 126 from France. This quantity was barely decrease than the 560 runners who achieved the mark in 2023.
Of the 28,000+ finishers, simply over 6,100 have been ladies, making up solely 21 per cent of the 2024 subject. The age group with probably the most sub-three finishers was the lads’s 18-35 classification, with 1,056 runners. The common marathon ending time for all contributors in Valencia was 3:39:12, with males averaging 3:33:30 and girls averaging 4:00:00.
Sub-three may not have the identical glory it used to have within the pre-carbon-plated shoe period, however the time remains to be thought-about inside the prime 5 per cent amongst marathon occasions—simply perhaps not at Valencia. The marathon within the Spanish metropolis has traditionally drawn round 30,000 runners from over 120 totally different nations, bolstered by its fame as one of many world’s quickest programs.
Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe gained this 12 months’s race in his marathon debut, changing into the fifth quickest man in historical past in 2:02:05. Ethiopia’s Megertu Alemu gained the ladies’s race with a time of two:16:49.
You’ll be able to view the complete outcomes from the 2024 Valencia Trinidad Alfonso Zurich Marathon, right here.