IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0172121.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Declines in marathon performance: Sex differences in elite and recreational athletes

Author

Listed:
  • Gerald S Zavorsky
  • Kelly A Tomko
  • James M Smoliga

Abstract

The first aim of this study was to determine the age group at which marathon performance declines in top male and female runners and to compare that to the runners of average ability. Another aim of this of this study was to examine the age-related yearly decline in marathon performance between age group winners and the average marathon finisher. Data from the New York (NYC), Boston, and Chicago marathons from 2001–2016 were analyzed. Age, sex, and location were used in multiple linear regression models to determine the rate of decline in marathon times. Winners of each age group were assessed in 5-year increments from 16 through 74 years old (n = 47 per age group). The fastest times were between 25–34 years old, with overall champion males at 28.3 years old, and overall champion females at 30.8 years old (p = 0.004). At 35 years of age up to 74 years of age, female age group winners had a faster yearly decline in marathon finishing times compared to male age group winners, irrespective of marathon location [women = (min:sec) 2:33 per year, n = 336; men = 2:06 per year, n = 373, p

Suggested Citation

  • Gerald S Zavorsky & Kelly A Tomko & James M Smoliga, 2017. "Declines in marathon performance: Sex differences in elite and recreational athletes," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-17, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0172121
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172121
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172121
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0172121&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0172121?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pantelis T. Nikolaidis & José Ramón Alvero-Cruz & Elias Villiger & Thomas Rosemann & Beat Knechtle, 2019. "The Age-Related Performance Decline in Marathon Running: The Paradigm of the Berlin Marathon," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-12, June.
    2. Mengmeng Guo & Shihe Fu, 2019. "Running With a Mask? The Effect of Air Pollution on Marathon Runners’ Performance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(7), pages 903-928, October.
    3. Carlos Hernando & Carla Hernando & Ignacio Martinez-Navarro & Eladio Collado-Boira & Nayara Panizo & Barbara Hernando, 2020. "Using Accelerometry for Evaluating Energy Consumption and Running Intensity Distribution Throughout a Marathon According to Sex," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(17), pages 1-14, August.
    4. Karin J. Waldvogel & Pantelis T. Nikolaidis & Stefania Di Gangi & Thomas Rosemann & Beat Knechtle, 2019. "Women Reduce the Performance Difference to Men with Increasing Age in Ultra-Marathon Running," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-16, July.
    5. Pantelis Theodoros Nikolaidis & Ivan Cuk & Thomas Rosemann & Beat Knechtle, 2019. "Performance and Pacing of Age Groups in Half-Marathon and Marathon," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-10, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0172121. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.