Polluted Air Could Cost You Minutes on Marathon Day
September 3, 2026
Air pollution rarely gets the same attention as heat, humidity, wind, and hills. But if you are racing through a large city, the air you breathe may be another environmental stressor working against you.
A massive cross-sectional study examined 2,756,553 finish times from 75 editions of the six World Marathon Majors between 2010 and 2024. The researchers paired each race with race-day concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO₂), a traffic-related pollutant, and fine particulate matter (PM₂.₅). They then estimated how those pollutants were associated with finish time after accounting for heat index, wind, and year. MARATHON HANDBOOK
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