Background: The purpose of this study was to establish sex-specific percentile curves and values for the running pace of Brazilian non-professional runners.
Methods: The sample comprised 1152 amateur runners aged 18-72 (61.8% males), from the five Brazilian regions. The runners answered an online questionnaire providing information about their biological (sex, age, height, weight) and training (volume and frequency/week, running pace) characteristics. Using 25th, 50th, and 75th percentile, the running pace was computed for women and men by age groups and by running distances (5 km, 10 km, 21 km, and 42 km). Sex- and age-specific percentile curves (10th, 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th) were created through the Lambda Mu Sigma method.
Results: For all ages and distance, men performed better than women, and a decrease in the performance was observed across age groups. Among male runners, the beginning of their thirties and the end of their forties seem to be the moments where they observed substantial improvements in running pace; among female runners, this improvement phase was observed to be more pronounced toward the end of their forties.
Conclusions: Percentile values of running pace could help coaches during training programs and runners to better understand "how well" they are comparing against their peers.
Keywords: age groups; performance; runners.