Increased Participation and Decreased Performance in Recreational Master Athletes in “Berlin Marathon” 1974–2019

• DOI: 10.3389/fphys.2021.631237
• Publication Date: 2021-06-28T06:11:52Z
• Authors: Marlen Reusser; Caio Victor Sousa; Elias Villiger; José Ramón Alvero...; Lee Hill; Thomas Rosemann; Pantelis T. Nikol...; Beat Knechtle
• Keywords: 11035 Institute of General Practice; Physiology; performance decline; 610 Medicine & health; 1314 Physiology; 16. Peace & justice; 03 medical and health sciences; 2737 Physiology (medical); 0302 clinical medicine; 5. Gender equality; running; participation; QP1-981; age of peak performance; marathon; performance

The aspect of participation and performance trends in marathon running has been investigated mainly marathons held the United States America (e.g., “New York City Marathon,” “Boston Marathon”), but not for fastest course world, “Berlin Marathon” Berlin, Germany. This study aimed to examine on all its previous 46 editions from 1974 2019, largest dataset ever studied this event with 696,225 finishers (after data cleaning). Athletes age groups increased their participation, except male athletes aged 20–49 years both sexes above 79 age. overall increase was more pronounced women, still, there are men than women participating nowadays. All group decreased across overall, whereas top ten recreational improved over years. Our findings knowledge about evolution female marathoners calendar years, especially race Marathon.”