What a revelation! When it comes to ultrarunning, Malaysian men and women are ranked the SLOWEST in the world, according to a study done by the statistically savvy people from RunRepeat.com.
The study explores the trends in ultra running over the last 23 years. They have analyzed 5,010,730 results from 15,451 ultra running events, making this the largest study ever done on the sport. Let's have a closer look below:
Pace differences by country
The best ultra runners are from South Africa with an average pace of 10:36 min/mile. The runner-ups are Sweden (11:56 min/mile) and Germany (12:01 min/mile).
The slowest ultra running nations are Argentina (15:20 min/mile), Mexico (15:30 min/mile) and Malaysia (15:55 min/mile or 9.32 min/km).
Male rankings
The fastest men are also from South Africa (10:23 min/mile), Sweden (11:43 min/mile) and Germany (11:53 min/mile).
The slowest men are from Argentina (15:01 min/mile), Mexico (15:06 min/mile) and Malaysia (15:54 min/mile or 9.7min/km).
Female rankings
The fastest women are from South Africa with an average pace of 11:11 min/mile. Second is Sweden (12:27 min/mile) and Germany (12:33 min/mile).
The slowest women are from Malaysia (16:00 min/mile or 9.94 min/km), Argentina (16:19 min/mile) and Mexico (16:40 min/mile).
The women from South Africa are faster than the men from all other countries, apart from South Africa. The women from Sweden are faster than all men, apart from the top 4.
Women from Germany are faster than men from 15 countries.
Even the fifth slowest women - the ones from Spain - are faster than the slowest men the ones from Malaysia.
Please also check out the other key findings below:
- Female ultra runners are faster than male ultra runners at distances over 195 miles. The longer the distance the shorter the gender pace gap. In 5Ks men run 17.9% faster than women, at marathon distance the difference is just 11.1%, 100-mile races see the difference shrink to just .25%, and above 195 miles, women are actually 0.6% faster than men.
- Participation has increased by 1676% in the last 23 years from 34,401 to 611,098 yearly participations and 345% in the last 10 years from 137,234 to 611,098. There have never been more ultra runners.
- More ultra runners are competing in multiple events per year. In 1996, only 14% of runners participated in multiple races a year, now 41% of participants run more than one event per year. There is also a significant increase in the % of people who run 2 races a year, 17.2% (from 7.7% to 24.9%) and 3 races, 6.7% (from 2.8% to 9.5%).
- There have never been more women in ultrarunning. 23% of participants are female, compared to just 14% 23 years ago.
- Ultra runners have never been slower across distance, gender and age group. The average pace in 1996 was 11:35 min/mile, currently, it is 13:16 min/mile. The average runner has added 1:41 min/mile to their average pace, which is a slowdown of 15% since 1996. We don't believe that individual runners have become slower, but that these distances are attracting less prepared runners now because the sport is more mainstream.
- Runners improve their pace in their first 20 races, and then their pace stabilizes. From their first to their second race runners improve by 0:17 min/mile (2%) on average. But by their 20th they improve by 1:45 min/mile (12.3%).
- The fastest ultra running nations are South Africa (average pace 10:36 min/mile), Sweden (11:56 min/mile), and Germany (12:01 min/mile).
- A record amount of people travel abroad for ultra running events. 10.3% of people travel abroad to run an ultra, for 5Ks this percentage is just 0.2%.
- Runners in the longer distances have a better pace than the runners in the shorter distances for each age group.
- All age groups have a similar pace, around 14:40 min/mile. Which is unusual compared to the past and to other distances.
- The average age of ultra runners has decreased by 1 year in the last 10 years. It has changed from 43.3 years to 42.3 years.
- Ultra runners are getting more engaged - the average number of ultras per year has increased from 1.3 to 1.7 over the last 23 years.
About the researchers
The study is a product of collaboration between Paul Ronto and Vania Nikolova. Ronto is an avid runner with 6 marathons under his belt and RunRepeat's Content Director. Nikolova holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Analysis.
Data and methodology
- The data covers over 85% of ultra running events worldwide.
- The analysis includes any distance runs longer than 26.2 miles including trail runs, mountain runs.
- The analysis includes runs set for and time over 6 hours since a small portion of ultra races do not have a singular set distance.
- In over 5,010,730 finish times only 3.77% of participants, race in a timed race compared to a set distance race.
- The study was done in collaboration with the International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU).
- The data includes the results of 5,010,730 million finishers from over 15 thousand races.
- Years 1996-2018
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