A Berlin Marathon study reveals that men "hit the wall" more often than women in the second half of the race

The researchers, led by the Swiss Beat Knechtle in collaboration with Brazilian colleagues, scrutinised the results of the Berlin Marathon over the period 1999–2025. According to the German press agency (dpa) dispatch picked up by several German-language media outlets, they analysed "more than 870,000 marathon races in Berlin" over that period, some of which came from runners who took part in several successive editions. The sample used for the main comparisons nevertheless exceeds 850,000 times over the official distance of 42.195 km.

In this study, "Hitting the Wall" is defined strictly: it is a drop of at least 20% in average pace between the first and the second half of the race. Unter "Hitting the Wall" verstehen Läuferinnen und Läufer einen plötzlichen Leistungseinbruch, der auftritt, wenn der Körper seine schnell verfügbaren Energiereserven verbraucht hat, the research team notes, stressing that it is a performance collapse occurring when the body has exhausted its rapidly mobilisable energy reserves.

A large-scale analysis of the Berlin Marathon

Bei Männern sei das "Hitting the Wall" genannte Phänomen womöglich etwa doppelt so wahrscheinlich wie bei Frauen, heißt es in der im Fachblatt "Scientific Reports" veröffentlichten Studie. In concrete terms, nearly 18% of male runners experienced this collapse, compared with less than 10% of female runners. Bei den Frauen waren es unter 10 Prozent, while die Männer erlebten fast doppelt so häufig das "Hitting the Wall"-Phänomen, nämlich knapp 18 Prozent von ihnen.

Insgesamt absolvierten die Männer den Marathon im Schnitt schneller (in 4 Stunden und 2 Minuten) als die Frauen (4 Stunden und 29 Minuten). This better average time does not shield them from the "wall": men reach the finish line faster, but they "burn through their cartridges" earlier, to use dpa's phrasing. Männer kamen im Durchschnitt schneller ins Ziel, verteilten ihre Kräfte jedoch weniger sorgfältig, the agency summarises.

The "wall" in numbers: a clear gap between sexes

Bei 52 Prozent der Frauen war kein klarer Leistungsabfall im Laufe des Marathons erkennbar – dies war bei den Männern nur bei gut einem Drittel (36 Prozent) der Fall. In other words, more than one in two female runners maintains a steady race profile, compared with barely one in three male runners. Women therefore face a markedly lower risk of seeing their pace collapse after the halfway mark.

Bei männlichen Läufern, die unter drei Stunden für den Marathon brauchten, lag die Häufigkeit für den Leistungseinbruch sogar sechsmal höher als bei den Frauen (1,42 versus 0,23 Prozent). This result is one of the most striking in the study: among the fastest finishers, the gap between sexes widens, and the frequency of collapse among men running under three hours is roughly six times higher than that of women at the same level.

Sub-three-hour finishers, an extreme case

Es sei interessant und überraschend, dass der plötzliche Leistungseinbruch bei Männern kein Anfängerproblem sei, sondern bei den sehr schnellen Läufern sogar besonders häufig ausgeprägt gewesen sei, betont Co-Autor Aldo Seffrin : "Dass sie fitter und erfahrener waren, hat die Männer nicht geschützt." The co-author thus emphasises that experience and fitness level do not provide protection: seasoned runners are precisely those in whom the "wall" appears most often, in absolute terms.

Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede beim Stoffwechsel und beim Anteil bestimmter Muskelfasern könnten den Glykogenmangel, der das Phänomen "Hitting the Wall" auslöse, womöglich wirksam verzögern. The authors put forward the hypothesis of more economical use of glycogen reserves in female runners, as well as a different composition of muscle fibres, to explain this greater resistance to collapse in the second half of the race.

The metabolic hypotheses advanced by the authors

Frauen liefen gleichmäßiger und hielten ihr Tempo auch in der zweiten Hälfte, so Seffrin weiter. This steadiness does not mean women are slower: they are simply more consistent, which allows them to limit the drop in pace after the thirtieth kilometre, the moment when carbohydrate reserves become critical.

Dies deute darauf hin, dass die gezielte Einteilung der Kräfte genauso wichtig ist wie die reine Geschwindigkeit und "dass viele Männer davon profitieren würden, wenn sie konservativer starten würden". The team infers from this that a tactical management of effort — for example, starting at a more moderate pace — could constitute a concrete lever for reducing the frequency of the "wall" among male runners. So könne das Risiko für "Hitting the Wall" möglicherweise reduziert werden, the study concludes.

The study nevertheless has several limitations that the authors themselves flag. The data come from a single event, the Berlin Marathon, whose flat profile favours steady paces; the results are therefore not necessarily transposable to hillier courses. Furthermore, the sample includes no information on training, nutrition, hydration, or the race strategy declared by participants — all variables that could modulate the occurrence of the "wall."

Study limitations and avenues for research

The study also does not allow a direct causal link to be established between biological sex and performance collapse. Other factors — such as muscle mass, body weight, body-fat percentage, or training habits — could interact with the metabolic differences mentioned by the authors. The researchers are calling for further studies that integrate these variables in order to refine the understanding of the phenomenon.

For amateur runners, the main practical lesson that emerges is tactical: adopting a more conservative opening pace and ensuring a regular carbohydrate supply during the race, particularly between the fifteenth and thirtieth kilometres, could significantly reduce the risk of a final collapse. The results suggest in any case that starting too fast remains one of the costliest pitfalls of the marathon, particularly among men targeting an ambitious finishing time.

Practical lessons for runners

These results add to a growing body of studies on physiological and metabolic differences between sexes in endurance sports — a field long under-represented in the scientific literature, as sports research has historically focused more on male cohorts. The publication in Scientific Reports, an open-access journal from the Nature group, should help broaden this field of knowledge.

The study was picked up in Germany notably by Deutschlandfunk on 4 July 2026 (Diese Nachricht wurde am 04.07.2026 im Programm Deutschlandfunk gesendet), as well as by several German-language press titles drawing on the dpa-infocom dispatch (© dpa-infocom, dpa:260704-930-331837/1). No official follow-up announcement has so far been made by the organisers of the Berlin Marathon regarding the possible integration of these results into their advice for participants.

Beyond the strictly sporting framework, these data could also be of interest to coaches, physical trainers, and sports physicians, who accompany runners of all levels in planning their goals and preventing mid-race slowdowns. The public dimension of the marathon — the first major mass-participation event of its kind in Germany — gives these conclusions a reach that could extend beyond the circle of specialists.