Yahoo Sport 
This Is How an Elite Marathoner Compares With an Amateur on Strava
The Paris Olympics is almost upon us, so it’s inevitable that some runners will find themselves wondering how their times compare with the best athletes in the world. Data from fitness app Strava shows that the gap is even wider in reality than it is in our heads.
The Olympic qualifying time for the men’s marathon is 2:11:30, an average pace of 5:01 per mile – so that’s the minimum you should expect from a top athlete. But the average male marathon time on Strava is 3:35:10, a much slower average pace of 8:15 per mile.
That’s not surprising, perhaps. But to put it in perspective, the average male Strava athlete would be at 15.9 miles, with just over 10 miles left to go, by the time an elite athlete crosses the finish line. The numbers are based on Strava's data set of more than 86 million athletes – pros and amateurs – in 195 countries.
Women tend to be a little slower, on average. The qualifying time for women is only 18 minutes slower than the male equivalent, at 2:29:30, an average pace of 5:41 per mile. But female amateurs on Strava are disproportionately slower than their male equivalents, at 4:12:18.
The reason for that gap isn’t quite clear. Perhaps men who record marathon times on Strava are more likely to be committed marathoners. Perhaps more women, including those with less experience over 26 miles, are giving marathons a go – which can only be a good thing.
The data also sheds light on the training regimes of pros and amateurs.
Unless you’re a seasoned, hard-core runner, you probably manage a few runs a week. In fact, the average weekly mileage recorded by Strava users is 11 miles, according to the fitness app. That’s a good way short – less than 20 per cent, in fact – of the 58 miles clocked by the average pro runners on the app.
For amateurs, the average longest run in the first few months of 2021 was eight miles. Pros, on the other hand, ran 20 miles on their longest run, on average.
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