My Marathon XR, ridden alternatively in the front and back in parallel with Conti Touring, lasted only half the time of the typical time for the Conti, 4K vs 8K miles. In addition, its failure mode, when old, was less graceful. Basically it started decomposing into segments, with tube getting though to the outside, making it impossible for me to get home even after patching. Conti just thins and starts catching flats. This made me rethink future purchases of Marathons. In some tests in the past, Schwalbes with similar functionalities as Contis, tended to be slower. However, I do not know whether the latter continues to be true.