Cork City Marathon Stats...

Now that the 2012 Cork City Marathon is over, it's time to do a bit of number crunching and to have a look at some stats.

In the full Marathon this year, there were 1,403 finishers. When you look at the graph above, you can see that the full Marathon numbers have been more or less consistent since the event started back in 2007. The average number for the last six years has been 1360 and it has only varied by about +/-5% over that time. It's hard to say exactly why it has been so steady. Why hasn't it grown by say 20%? The numbers at the shorter races locally have gone way up since 2007, why not the Marathon? It's almost as if for a given population in the catchment area, this is the number that can be expected to run a full Marathon.

As for the Relay numbers, they are far from steady. After showing steady growth for the the first three years, it seemed to flatten out in 2010. In the last two years, it has been declining and this year was the lowest with 570 teams. It's probably no coincidence that the decline in the relay numbers has coincided with the introduction of the Half-Marathon. Still though, the Relay runners are the largest block with somewhere in the region of 2,000 to 2,300 people taking part in it.

In 2011, there was a limit of 1,000 entries for the Half. This restriction was eased this year and 1,508 turned out. Taking the numbers for the full, half and relay together then roughly 5,000 to 5,200 people took part in the 2012 Cork City Marathon as a whole.

Times......As for times, I broke the number of finishers into 10 minute blocks and plotted this graph. (This shows the number of runners finishing in a ten minute period. For example, the 100 mark means that 100 runners finished in 10 minutes...or at a rate of 10 per minute or one every 6 seconds).

As you can see from 2011 and 2012, the peak in the numbers of Marathon runners finishing is around the 3 hour 50 minute mark. For whatever reason, there seems to have been more 4:10-4:30 runners this year compared to 2011. Was it the heat? I didn't think that this year was much warmer than last year so I'm not sure why the difference.

What's also interesting is that if you were to look at the average finishing time for a Marathon in the USA, it's about 4:30. Looking at the graph above, you can see that the average Marathon runner in Cork is over 30 minutes faster than their US counterparts! (*See below)

The graph above shows the average finishing time for the Relay Teams....again based on 10 minute segments. There has been a definite step change this year. Not only have the numbers gone down but the graph suggests that some of the faster relay runners in 2011 may have opted to do the Half-Marathon instead?

What the graph also shows is that the average Marathon runner is faster than a combined team of Relay runners! Looking at the graph above, I'd suggest perhaps that the average person now doing the relay is probably not a club or a regular runner....or at least, they are not doing much mileage on a regular basis. Running 4 to 6 miles might be the limit for a lot of them and they may have trained just for this event.

This graph is for the finishing times for the Half-Marathon broken up into 5 minute segments. It's obvious that the 2012 event attracted more of the 2 hour plus runners when compared to 2011. 

The peak in finishing times is roughly 1:55. Again when compared to the USA, it's well ahead of the 2:11 average finishing time there (* See below).

If we look at the gender balance for the Half and Full Marathon, we get the following picture...

As you can see, the full Marathon is dominated by men with women making up 19.7% of the field. The figure for 2011 was 20.1% which was pretty similar. * Comparing this to the USA, the figure over there is 41% of the Marathon field are women which might well explain why the average finishing time was so much faster in Cork.

The percentage of women taking part in the Cork City Half-Marathon was a lot higher at 44.5%. (Compared to 59% in the US!!). Again, this may the main reason why times here are faster.

Obviously the graphs above are a bit rough but there is a lot of information in them. For example, they can be used to find out where the concentration of runners are out along the course....when are the water stations likely to be at their busiest?....what the effect of changing the Half-Marathon time might be? For example, if the Half was to start just a few minutes late then the peak of runners from each race would merge on the Marina where the road is very narrow.

Future.......So can we use the info to predict anything?

For the Marathon, it seems likely that the number turning up next year will be around 1,400 again. IF the numbers are limited by the available catchment area then an obvious growth path is to encourage more women to take part in the full Marathon race. Compared to the US participation levels, the percentage of women is almost half here so this is an obvious growth path.

For the Half-Marathon, this is the one race where the growth prospects are the best. Looking at other races where there is a full and half option available, the Half-Marathon is often three times bigger. Could the Cork City Half-Marathon attract ~4,000 runners? I have my doubts but it should certainly be able to attract a lot more than the current 1,500. Whether there is enough capacity for the larger numbers is another issue.

As for the Relay event, it seems likely to be mainly of interest to beginners or very occasional  runners in the future. Despite falling from roughly 4,000 entrants in 2010 to roughly 2,000 in 2012, it's still the largest group. It's hard to see how the numbers will ever recover again though.

Conclusion........I think perhaps that when the idea of introducing the Half was first thought of, it might have seemed like it was a good way of attracting more runners to the event overall. I don't know if the organisers expected it to eat into the Relay numbers as much as it did. 

Surely one of the main reasons for any City Marathon is to attract tourists into the region. The Relay event will never do that but a Half and Full Marathon combination might. If the Cork City Marathon is to grow and thrive in the future then the Half-Marathon will have to be expanded.

Comments...???