Marathon in numbers

Marathon is a 42.195 km long run. This text is indirectly fixated on Marathons. Just because they are something most people consider as a very respectable benchmark of fitness, while ti is much more achievable than they realize.

How long does it take to "run" a marathon? We will use the word "run" very literately. More like "transport yourself". Also the word "step" is meant as advancing once with each leg.

If you are a total couch potato, you will do around 2000 steps a day. That is ~1.4km a day. It would take you a little over 30 days to run a marathon at a pace 1028 min per kilometer. You could run a marathon during a good month (I recommend October). It sounds absurd, but even you could run a marathon. Most marathons would not allow this time due to cutoffs, but it is a technical detail.

If you at least walk to to a public transport, you are probably doing around 5000 steps. That is ~3.5km a day. That would take around 12 days. Not bad. You just run a marathon under 2 weeks at a pace 411 min per km. Probably without breaking much sweat.

The completely arbitrary fitness goal which may actually be pretty reasonable and a lot of people strive for is 10k steps per day. That is ~7km per day. Marathon would take only 6 days with a pace of 206 min per km. Not even a week. Nice.

Now, consider walking. Most people can walk 4 km in an hour very comfortably. That is a pace of 15 min per km. You could start walking at 10:00, walk for 3 hours, take 1 hour break for a late lunch, walk 3 more hours, take 1 hour break for early dinner, and do the same the next day. You would run a marathon over a weekend, Just under 30 hours. 42 min per kilometer on average. Not bad.

If we assume you can sustain the 4 km per hour speed a bit longer, you can do the marathon comfortably in one day. Wake up at 7:00. Start walking at 8:00. 1 hour dinner at 12:00 (16 km covered so far). Then walk 4 more hours, 1 hour break and final 2.5 hour stretch. You are finished by 19:30. Marathon in 12.5 hours. 18 min per km. This is actually a very nice milestone. Running most Marathons have cutoff of 6 hours. 12.5 hours is much more than 6, but it is the same order of magnitude. If you manage to do this, you should see that marathon is achievable.

To make the marathon cutoff, you need to run at an average pace of 8.5 min per km, for 6 hours straight. This is what we will aim for in this book. Running at a pace 8.5 min is widely considered a light jog. That does not matter. The trick is to sustain it for 6 hours.

Another, more reasonable strategy on how to make the cutoff is to run in 5 km chunks, and than have a short rest while walking. The reason is, that on Marathon there is an aid station every 5 km. The strategy is to run for 4.5km at a pace 8 min per km, then around the aid station walk for 0.5 km at a walk pace of 12 min per km. Repeat this 8 times, and run the last 2.195 km. Overall, you will be done in 353 minutes with 7 minutes to spare. You may need to poop.

To break the 5 hour mark, you need to run at an average pace of 7 min per km. This is reasonably achievable if you will follow this text.
#TODO

6 min per km gets you to 4h 13 min. #TODO

5 min per km is around 3h:30min. #TODO

Under 3 hours and you are a very, very good amateur. You just qualified for Boston Marathon. One of the most competitive Marathons ever.

Under 2.5 hours and you are probably a professional. This will get you top 10 in a lot of events.

Current fastest official Marathon time is around 2 hours = 120 minutes. 2.8 min per kilometer. Most fit people can not sprint this fast.

The fastest running speed of a human being ever measured is currently 44.72 km/h, 1.3 min per kilometer. This speed would get you through marathon finish line in under 57 minutes.