Do you want to win the London Marathon?

Approximately 38,000 men and women will line up at the start in Blackheath, southeast London on Sunday.

For many runners, the goal will be just to finish the 26.2 mile race after months of training in the cold and the dark - but some will be eyeing up specific times or even dreaming of winning it altogether.

So how fast do you need to run to win it?

To find out, we analysed more than 37,000 finishing times of the 2015 runners in the general section open to the public - not the elite or wheelchair athletes.

To win the general race...

The 2015 general men's winner was Ian Kimpton of Luton Athletic Club. He finished in two hours, 15 minutes and 51 seconds (2:15:51).

To be in with a chance of winning the men's general race, you need to be hitting the halfway mark just after Tower Bridge at about one hour 7 minutes.

The 2015 general women's winner was Paula Radcliffe. The women's world record holder was in the general section last year - she finished first in two hours, 36 minutes and 35 seconds (2:36:55).

To be in with a chance of beating Paula's 2015 time, you need to be hitting the half marathon mark at about one hour 20 minutes.

To finish in less than three hours...

Finishing with a time of between two and three hours in 2015 would have put you in the top eight per cent of men and the top one per cent of women.

You are best off allowing a little extra time in the second half of the marathon - runners who made it round in under three hours were usually at the halfway mark by 1:28:30.

To finish in less than four hours...

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If you made it to the end by four hours, you were in the top 47 per cent of men and the top 22 per cent of women.

Men who finished in less than four hours were usually at halfway by 1:55:00 and women by 1:57:00.

To get an above average time...

The average (median) finishing time for men in the general race was 4:04:23 and for women it was 4:39:27.

This means that of all the runners who recorded a finishing time, half of them had made it to the end by these times.

James Robinson and Krzysztof Tynor achieved precisely these times in the men's race, while Samantha Standerwick did so for the women.

Read more: All the spectator information you'll need for London Marathon 2016.

Data, hour splits...

MEN:

Split // Runners finishing (cumulatively) // Top X per cent of finishers

Less than 3 hours // 1,797 // 7.8

Less than 4 hours // 10,880 // 47.0

Less than 5 hours // 19,392 // 83.8

Less than 6 hours // 22,377 // 96.7

More than 6 hours // 23,149 // 100.0

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WOMEN:

Split // Runners finishing (cumulatively) // Top X per cent of finishers

Less than 3 hours // 90 // 0.6

Less than 4 hours // 3,130 // 21.9

Less than 5 hours // 9,331 // 65.3

Less than 6 hours // 12,975 // 90.8

More than 6 hours // 14,282 // 100.0