What’s a good half marathon time?
For a normal adult, a half marathon finish time anywhere from about 1 hour 50 minutes to 2 hours 30 minutes is ordinary. Published race-result data puts the median at 1:59:48 for men and 2:24:03 for women, a gap of just over 24 minutes between the two sexes' typical finishers. Sub-2:00, the half marathon's best-known popular milestone, sits right at that men's median but well ahead of the women's. Unlike the 5K, no major race-result dataset publishes a verified, age-bracketed half marathon breakdown, a gap this page states plainly instead of papering over with invented numbers.
The half marathon is where "was that good?" gets harder to answer with a single number, because the honest data splits by sex a lot more than it splits by age. Below are the actual published numbers for the half marathon specifically, with the gaps in the data called out rather than papered over.
Half marathon finish times by percentile and sex
RunRepeat's percentile calculator, built on the same underlying database as its 5K and 10K figures (roughly 35 million race results from 28,000+ races, last updated March 2024), reports half marathon finish times as percentiles by sex. Same as the 10K, RunRepeat does not publish a half marathon age-bracket table, and no other aggregator was found with a comparably sized, disclosed-methodology, age-broken-down half marathon dataset. A blog-level "average half marathon time by age" table does circulate widely online, but its own source (marathonhandbook.com) discloses that its age rows are extrapolated from Jack Daniels' VDOT tables and masters age-grading records, not measured from race results, so it isn't used here.
| Percentile | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Fastest 1% | 1:35:55 | 1:18:37 |
| Fastest 10% | 1:57:01 | 1:40:35 |
| Median (50th) | 2:24:03 | 1:59:48 |
| Slower than 90% | 3:08:21 | 2:42:48 |
These are straight percentiles of the same finisher population, not averages, so the median row is the literal middle result. RunRepeat's own page describes finishing faster than that median as "above average," which is the closest the source itself comes to using the word "average" for this distance.
What counts as good: the bands
These bands use the same RunRepeat percentile data as the table above, mapped to plain-language labels.
| Band | Women | Men | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|
| First-timer / just finishing | 3:08:21 or slower | 2:42:48 or slower | Slower than 90% of finishers, typical for a first half marathon |
| Recreational (typical) | ~2:24:03 | ~1:59:48 | The median finisher, right in the middle of the field |
| Good | 1:57:01 or faster | 1:40:35 or faster | Faster than 90% of finishers |
| Very good | 1:35:55 or faster | 1:18:37 or faster | Faster than 99% of finishers |
Worth flagging, same as on the 5K and 10K pages: pace-standard calculators like Running Level put their "good" (intermediate) half marathon time faster still: 1:43:33 for men, 2:00:12 for women, because that site's population skews toward people who already track and calculate paces, and its page discloses no sample size or methodology. RunRepeat's mass race-result data remains the more representative comparison for "how do I stack up against everyone who ran a half marathon," which is the question most people asking this are actually asking.
For scale: records and the sub-2:00 milestone
At the far end, per World Athletics, the men's half marathon world record is 56:51, run by Yomif Kejelcha at the Media Maratón Ciudad de Buenos Aires on 23 August 2026 (pending World Athletics ratification). The women's record is split by race type, the same way it is at 10K: 1:02:52 in a mixed-gender race (Letesenbet Gidey, Valencia, 24 October 2021), and 1:05:16 in a women-only race (Peres Jepchirchir, World Half Marathon Championships, Gdynia, Poland, 17 October 2020). Nobody reading this needs to get near those times. They're here purely so "good" has a ceiling to sit under.
Sub-2:00 is the time barrier recreational half marathon runners talk about most, and, same as sub-60 at the 10K, it means something different by sex. For men, it sits right at the median (1:59:48), a normal, not exceptional, target. For women, it sits meaningfully faster than the median (2:24:03) by more than 24 minutes, and only about 3 minutes slower than the fastest-10% cutoff (1:57:01), a genuine step up from "just finishing." The half marathon is also the race with the most room to grow into: per RunRepeat's "State of Running" study, it drew about 2.1 million finishers worldwide in 2018, the second-highest turnout of any standard race distance after the 5K.
How to actually get faster
Comparing your time to the tables above is a snapshot, not a plan. What moves the number is training, and the same principles apply whether the current time is 2:30 or 1:45:
- Run consistently before running hard. Same principle as the 5K and 10K: a regular weekly habit does more for a first half marathon time than any single workout. Streak tracking is built around exactly this.
- Add structure, not just distance. Runked's half marathon training plan mixes easy running, one weekly long run, and tempo or interval work rather than just piling on miles.
- Know the actual number, not the guess. Runked's race time predictor estimates your current half marathon, 5K, 10K and marathon times from recent training, so progress is measured, not assumed.
- Watch fatigue, not just mileage. The fitness & fatigue tracking flags when harder training is about to backfire, which matters more at half marathon distance than at 5K.
- Compare to yourself, not the table above. A running rank that moves with your own training is a better daily signal than any percentile.
Find out where you stand
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Download on App StoreFrequently asked questions
What's a good time for a first half marathon?
Anything you finish counts. If you want a number: RunRepeat's race-result data puts the median (50th percentile) half marathon finish at 1:59:48 for men and 2:24:03 for women, with the 90th-percentile mark (slower end of the field) at 2:42:48 for men and 3:08:21 for women. A first half marathon anywhere in that slower band is ordinary, not slow: a meaningful share of every field finishes there or slower.
What's the average half marathon time by age?
Unlike the 5K, no major race-result database publishes a disclosed, age-bracketed half marathon breakdown: RunRepeat's own half marathon figures, and every other large dataset checked, report finish times by sex only, not by age. What is verified: the median half marathon finish is 1:59:48 for men and 2:24:03 for women, from RunRepeat's analysis of 35 million race results. Running performance generally slows gradually with age across distances, but applying that pattern to the half marathon specifically without a published dataset would be a guess, not a sourced number, so it isn't presented as one here.
Is sub-2:00 a good half marathon time?
It depends on sex. For men, sub-2:00 sits right at the median (1:59:48), a normal, not exceptional, time. For women, it's a real step up: 2:00:00 is more than 24 minutes faster than the median (2:24:03) and only about 3 minutes slower than the fastest-10% cutoff (1:57:01), so a sub-2:00 half marathon for a woman sits close to the front tenth of the field.
How long does it take to train for a half marathon?
Most structured half marathon plans run 10 to 12 weeks for someone with an existing running base, and 12 to 16 weeks for someone building a base from nothing. The exact number depends more on current fitness than on the finish-time goal. Runked's half marathon training plan builds that structure automatically, and PRO's race time predictor estimates your current half marathon pace from recent training, so "am I ready" has an actual number behind it instead of a guess.