Just looked at the graph properly. A quarter of users do <3km a week
And isn’t that also your age group? Mine compares to 30-34
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Yes it is m50-54 but you can compare with other age groups too and seems it’s still true that 99% of whippersnappers like m30-34 do less.
I guess some people have a Garmin for golf or cycling only etc 
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You are more acclimated than 99% of garmin users.
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“baked” and “leathery” are the other words…
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I’m in the 50-54 category and it tells me I run farther than 96% of other users. But then it also tells me I sleep more hours than 92% of other users. They probably just need to run more.
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I wondered maybe if their dataset included dead users? But your sleep stats suggest not…
edit: sorry taken this off topic
anyway, 4 hour marathons. No thanks, too far.
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Also, change the metric to average pace, and you’ll see the left-side tail
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But can they survive double Bologna 
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Try the 3 hour thread, it’s not as far
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It’s simply true that people don’t run nearly as much as people say they do or is recommended by industry.
And that’s okay 
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Its simply true 90%+ of Garmin users (and strava) go for a walk or a jog or ride a few times a month. That is reality.
Everyone at work except one has a garmin… they thought about taking up running, do it wrong (too hard, chase times), and give up… three months later they try again six weeks before their summer holiday.
A vast majority of garmin users are not what many would call athletes amateur or otherwise.
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This is true.
Given that over 20,000 people in the UK have lied about completing a marathon 
But some people the top 15% probably run more than they say they do… I know multiple Kona and 70.3 World Champs qualifiers that hide and dont upload their runs and bike rides… for some reason they hide their key sessions or don’teven upload them.
151,000+ marathons - I think the wrinkles who can be bothered to interfere with the auto upload of their training are ironed out in the analysis.
You don’t need to run more than 3.x times a week for sixteen weeks to break 4. Prove. Me. Wrong.
That’s pretty much what the data you linked showed isn’t it? People who ran 3h30-4h uploaded an average of 3.3 runs per week in the 16 weeks before the marathon.
Can we assume upload rate was not 100% though?
Maybe a week off with illness, and a taper week. So in those other 14 weeks they were running at least every other day.
Also the average distance of each of the 55ish runs was about 13km, which doesn’t sound shabby to me. Sounds like they did the homework
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So the stats actually say they did an average of 26miles a week, over 3 and the odd 4 runs (3.1), which if there was some cycling or gym work a pretty tidy amount of running.
Last 8 weeks higher that first 8 which allows for a few 20’s and even a 22 and a couple of 4 or 5 miles in the week with some effort earlier in the plan you may only do 15 miles, allowing more room for a longer TMP effort in the week during the build or peak phases also
If I get bored later I can quickly knock up a plan for JoeX to go sub 4 (although he will have to actually do it and not spend 4 hours a day procrastinating on the interwebs 
) I bet its not as easy as it looks on paper. 3.1 consistent runs a week for 16 weeks all key sessions and hitting them all.
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Definitely not easy, agreed. Averaging 42km per week for 16 weeks must take effort for sure. You’d run the distance from London to Edinburgh in training (edit: figuratively…)
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Sounds like you are in a great position to prove it correct. 
Btw, at no point have I ever said or even implied that the ‘population’ average needs to do any more for sub 4h, the data analysis has shown that.
Can you personally, or Megan 38 over the road probably but it is not a given.
The odds are if you can and do a ‘bit’ more or bit more still then you are setting yourself up for a greater chance of success.
N=1
I can prove that the 68.5km and 4.5 runs per week for 16 weeks doesnt net me a 2h30 - 3h00 though.
If I cannot hit the paces required over those km for a 2h30 - 3h then its no going to happen
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Id like to see that.
And no it isnt easy, in the summer heat for an Autumn Marathon or in the dark and bad 
weather in the winter for a spring Marathon.
Talking about if bored later… anyone got a link to the whole study… I can only see the abstract which leaves so many unanswered questions.
Very true.
Like "but the fastest runners within the dataset (marathon time 120–150 min) accumulated > three times more volume than slower runners. "
Could just focus on that.
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Just a quick ballpark “NOT PROPER TRAINING ADVICE”. Obviously for that I’d need to see some previous history and wouldn’t deliberately target an average of 26 miles but with the basics I have on Joe with caveat some weeks we may back off depending on feedback and fatigue levels/injury risks, but this is pretty similar build I used with others doing marathon whilst tri training (note cross training was done also with most weeks a 2-3hr bike and some swimming used as recovery)
run 2 is at 9min/mile avg to get that sub 4, after a little WU based on what you would do on the day, might add a 30minute stand and shuffle forward simulating standing in the porta potty queues
run 1 is steady/easy and would also add some targeted drills before. run 3 would be easy/recovery also when included and also have some drills before
| 1 | 2 | 3 | LR | total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 14 | ||
| 2 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 18 | ||
| 3 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 14 | ||
| 4 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 20 | ||
| 5 | 4 | 8 | 12 | 24 | ||
| 6 | 4 | 6 | 8 | 18 | ||
| 7 | 4 | 8 | 14 | 26 | ||
| 8 | 4 | 10 | 16 | 30 | ||
| 9 | 4 | 12 | 18 | 34 | ||
| 10 | 4 | 6 | 10 | 20 | ||
| 11 | 3 | 12 | 3 | 18 | 35 | |
| 12 | 3 | 14 | 3 | 20 | 40 | |
| 13 | 3 | 15 | 3 | 22 | 43 | |
| 14 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 14 | 26 | |
| 15 | 4 | 6 | 2 | 8 | 20 | |
| 16 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 26.2 | 36.2 | |
| Avg | 26.2 |
Edited as there wasn’t enough recovery weeks before
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