Marathon participation still on the rise

More and more people keep signing up to run the marathon.

According to the annual report by Running USA, 2014 marked the biggest year ever for marathon participation, continuing a nearly four-decade-old streak of growth. The only year which didn’t see growth was 2012, the year Hurricane Sandy caused the cancellation of the New York City Marathon, the world’s largest event of its kind.

Similar data doesn’t exist for Canada, and though there may be differences, percentages are likely similar.

In 2014, about 550,600 runners finished a marathon, up nearly 10,000 from 2013. The gender split of 57 per cent male to 43 per cent female finishers remained the same as the previous year, a split that has been slowly shifting towards even. In 1980, 90 per cent of finishers were male. The marathon in recent years is also the only race where men still outnumber women. The median age for marathon finishers was 38 – 36 for females and 40 for males.

But all the new runners also means times are slowing. Median finishing times in 2014 were 4:19:27 and 4:44:19 for men and women, numbers which have been steadily slowing with rising numbers. Of course some are still faster than others. The Boston Marathon, with it’s notoriously tough qualifying times is the quickest, with overall median finishing time of 3:52:09.