The State of US Marathons 2025

In 2019, we presented the original The State of Running 2019, which was presented together with the World Athletics in China.

This is our first follow-up in 6 years.

For this 2025 report, we’ve narrowed our focus to look exclusively at races in the US, and exclusively at the marathon distance.

Key conclusions

• Marathon participation peaked in 2014 with 496,178 participants. Over the following 4 years, participation slowly declined to 411,792, a yearly decline of 4.4%. 
• COVID-19 made marathon running (almost) inaccessible, with just 142,590 participants (-65%) in 2020 including a few restriction-free periods
• Four years after COVID-19, marathon participation is back to levels exceeding the participation prior to COVID-19, with 432,562 participants in 2024, a 5.0% increase, and a positive trend just 12.8% below the all-time high from 2014.  
• Since the first female marathon participant (1967), the percentage of total participation that has been female has broken records every year until 2017, when 47% of participants were female. Since then, the proportion of female participants has been steadily declining, with just 41% of participants being female in 2024. 
• Finish times are improving across genders and age groups for the first time in decades. 
• The age groups below 25 has grown significantly as a percentage of total participation (From 9.2% in 2016 to 12.1% in 2024).

Data and methodology

• The data covers approximately 97% of total US race results on the marathon distance. 
• Elite runners have been excluded
• Walks, “run for charity”, obstacle course races, and other non-traditional running events have been excluded
• The study was done in collaboration with the World Athletics in 2025. 
• Data collection was done through databases of race results as well as individual World Athletics races. 
• 10,482,628 race results, 6352 events
• From 1984 to 2025

US Marathon race participation

Overall

From the participation graph of US marathons, we conclude that running has been on the rise since the pandemic, in contrast to the trend we have been seeing since 2014. Marathon participation in the US is 5% higher than pre-pandemic levels.

Participation by gender

Looking at participation numbers by gender, we can see that male participation has increased in a greater proportion than female participation. Male participants in 2019 were 234,346, and in 2024, there were 255,033 participants, which is an increase of 8.8%. Female participants in 2019 were 173,207, and in 2024, they were 174,875, which is an increase of just 1%.

Even though female participation has registered a smaller increase, female participants now accounts for only 41% in 2024, as opposed to 45% in 2017 (peak).

Participation by age

The proportion of marathon runners older than 45 has increased, while the age group 35-44 has decreased.

Participation by event size

Runners predominantly prefer large larges with more than 5,000 participants. Only during the COVID-19 period were the smaller races able to make up a significant proportion of total race participation, which since then has been on the decline for small race organizers.

Finish times

Overall

In our research in 2019, we saw a trend of Americans slowing down. 

Now, for the first time, we can conclude that marathon runners are getting faster. The average finish time in 2019 was 4:39 hours and in 2024 it is 4:34 hours (which is an improvement of 1.9%). 

During COVID, finish times were abnormally slow. Reasons for this can be many.

Finish times by gender

We see a similar trend in the gender-specific finish times. Men had an average finish time of 4:28 hours in 2019 and 4:24 hours in 2024, which is 2.2% faster. Women had an average finish time of 4:54 hours in 2019 and 4:51 hours in 2024, which is 1.1% faster.

Finish time by age

We conclude a similar trend when we look at the finish times of the different age groups. All age groups have slightly improved since 2019:

• For 18-24 from 4:21 to 4:19 hours (0.9% improvement)
• For 25-34 from 4:33 to 4:27 hours (1.9% improvement)
• For 35-44 from 4:35 to 4:29 hours (2% improvement)
• For 45-54 from 4:42 to 4:38 hours (1.4% improvement)
• For 55-64 from 4:58:28 to 4:58:04 hours (0.1% improvement)
• For 65+ from 5:39 to 5:35 hours (1.1% improvement)

Below, we’re presenting the pace per gender and age combined.

Age distribution

Looking at the average distribution of participants in 2016, 2020, and 2024, we see that it has changed. The distributions in 2016 and 2020 are similar and look close to normal, but in 2024, we see a left skew and more younger participants.

We also see slight spikes in participation when there is an anniversary of the runners, so some people run marathons as a milestone celebration.