The “New York City Marathon”: participation and performance trends of 1.2M runners during half-century. The aim of the present study was to investigate trends in terms of participation, performance, age and nationality during a period of \ ~ 50 years in the largest data record that has ever been examined at the New York City Marathon. We analyzed 1'174'331 finisher (women, n = 349'145, age 39.7 ± 8.7 years; Men, N = 825'186, 41.7 ± 9.2 years). The total participation increased across all calendar years for all nationalities, and this increase was more pronounced in women, which led to a decline in the men’s women’s relationship. Men were faster and older than women. Ethiopians and Kenyans were the fastest and recent women in women and men. Japanese were the slowest and the Germans in both sexes the oldest runners. The race took over years.
Trainers and coaches should be aware of these trends and favor the development of training programs for older and slower runners. The whole study can be found under https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30889965/