It takes 32,000 steps to finish a marathon in 3 hours. Since we know runners in that category are in the air longer, it makes sense that more time means more steps. But how many? Turns out, about 4,000 steps for each additional 30 minutes. For those who finished after 5.5 hours, that means they take 50% more steps than the 3 hour runner.

But what does that mean in terms of shock to the system? Measuring shock as a composite of braking and impact Gs, we calculated that regardless of your finish time each step of the marathon hurts pretty much the same (close to 15 Gs).  So the question isn’t how much it is going to hurt, it’s for how long.

Those additional steps and shock Gs add up. Cumulatively, 3 hour runners experienced a total of ~500,000 Gs of shock, while 5 hour runners limped home after experiencing closer to 650,000 Gs.