How long does it take to run a marathon?
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What is a marathon? How long is it?
A marathon is 26.2 miles (to be precise, it should be exactly 26.219 miles (26 miles 385 yards), or 42.195 km).
That is obviously no short distance, and the time (and effort it takes) can be quite a big amount!
How long does it take to run a full marathon?
The world’s best runners will complete a marathon in just over 2 hours. But these are the world class athletes. What about for more ‘normal’ runners?
How long does it take to WALK a full marathon?
Well if you are more of a walker, it would normally take around 8 hours.
So, how long for normal runners to complete a marathon?
Most normal runners are very happy with a 4 hour time when completing their marathons.
The average (medium) time for men running U.S. marathons in 2016 was 4:22:07 (9:59 min per mile pace). Women were 4:47:40 (10:58 min per mile pace).
How to estimate your marathon time
One method is to take your half marathon time, double it, and add around 15 minutes to that time. On the day, with lots of cheering you should be able to maintain that sort of pace if you have adequate training.
There are some good resources on the web, including this running calculator, and this good pace/time predictor.
How long does it take to train to be able to run a marathon?
Before running a marathon you should definitely start off by checking you can run at least a 5k or 10k distance. Once you can run these sort of distances, it should take around 12 to 20 weeks of training before you will ‘easily’ (and I don’t mean that it will be ‘easy’!) be able to run a full marathon.
This is just a quick overview, if you are planning on training for a marathon then please see our guide on how to train for a marathon!