Does 'Hitting the Wall' in Marathons Favor Men? Big Data Has the…

On the marathon course, "hitting the wall" is every runner's nightmare. That desperate experience of total energy depletion, legs like lead, and a cliff‑like drop in pace can turn the 42.195 km journey into a long ordeal. Yet it's a situation runners commonly encounter.

So between male and female runners, who is more likely to hit the wall in a marathon? Intuitively, people might think men—who run faster or are more competitive—are more likely to blow up; a recent study, however, has answered this question using big‑data analysis.

A top scientific journal reports

Male runners are more likely than female runners to hit the wall

Recently, Nature’s journal Scientific Reports published a study on runners hitting the wall in the marathon. Researchersused electronic timing data from 873,334 finishers of the Berlin Marathon between 1999 and 2025 as their sampleand conducted a detailed analysis.

They defined runners whowhose second‑half pace dropped by at least 20% compared with the first half as having "hit the wall."After extensive scientific analysis, the results are striking: although men’s average finish time (4 hours 2 minutes) was faster than women’s (4 hours 29 minutes),the proportion of men who "hit the wall" was as high as 17.63%, while women were only 9.66% — men were almost twice as likely as women.

Among elite finishers under 3 hours the gap was even wider: men had a "hit the wall" probability of 1.42%, women only 0.23% — men were six times more likely than women.

The study also found that this sex difference remained stable over the 27‑year period and was not a fluke in any single year or period.

Beyond the top academic journal, the popular fitness app Strava also provided data supporting that "male runners are more likely to blow up."Strava records from the 2025 Boston Marathon showed that among runners who slowed by 10% or more in the final 10 km, 39% were men and 25% were women — men were 14 percentage points higher.

Causes behind being "more vulnerable"

A trio of physiology, strategy, and psychology

Why are male runners more likely to blow up? It's not caused by a single factor, but likely byphysiological differences、race strategyandpsychological factorsare the result of the combined action of all three factors.

First, on the physiological level, female runners have an "energy-saving" advantage. The marathon's ultimate physiological constraint is the limited glycogen stores. When muscle glycogen is exhausted, "hitting the wall" occurs. The research team offers the view that during a marathon a larger share of energy in female runners' fuel system comes from fat oxidation; consequently, compared with male runners they can "use" the glycogen stored in muscles more sparingly, reducing the likelihood of glycogen depletion and "hitting the wall."

In race strategy, male runners often adopt a more aggressive approach from the start; an excessively fast pace causes premature energy depletion.

At the same time, the Berlin Marathon data study mentioned earlier also shows that female runners begin a gradual slowdown from 20 km, while male runners are more likely to sustain high paces into the 25–30 km phase. The result is that women have narrower pace fluctuations and the race takes on a "slow-and-steady" pattern, whereas men tend to follow a "fast-then-collapse" trajectory — a direct driver of the higher incidence of hitting the wall among men.

In addition, psychological factors play a role. On one hand, when men compete together their competitive instincts often push them to go all out; on the other hand, some men feel compelled to show their "strongest" side in front of female runners. Both increase the chance that male runners will proceed at an ill-suited pace and blow up.

Lesson from the research: learn to "hold back"

Facing the challenge of "hitting the wall," what changes can runners make to reduce its occurrence?

First, choose a more appropriate pacing strategy,resist the urge to accelerate in the opening stages of the race,and gradually increase your speed during the race. The ideal is to run a "negative split" — the second half faster than the first, in which case "hitting the wall" naturally doesn't occur; a fallback option,is to adopt a steady pacing strategy, reducing pace variability— not only does this effectively lower the chance of "hitting the wall," but finishing times often improve as well.

Beyond pacing, you canrefine your in-race fueling plan — by taking in external energy to ensure a steady internal energy supply.For more on fueling, check the article PaoYe published earlier:From 1:59:30 to PB: 萨维's elite fueling strategy — what can ordinary runners learn?

Wishing everyone a Personal Best, and no Pao Beng!

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How do you cope when you hit "the wall"?#

Writer/Editor: HP

Image source: Pao Ye Da Baozha

Visuals: Max

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Does 'Hitting the Wall' in Marathons Favor Men? Big Data Has the Answer