Why everyone you know is running a marathon

The 2024 New York City Marathon officially broke the world record for marathon finishers, with 55,646 runners from all over the world crossing the finish line earlier this month. It’s a far cry from the race’s humble beginnings: In 1970, just 55 runners completed the race, which then only entailed laps around Central Park. 

The record-breaking participation in this month’s run came as no surprise to me, because I have seen the growing popularity of marathon running in my own life: This year, I cheered on six of my friends from the sidelines. And last year, I even ran the race myself. 

In the past few years, my circle of 20- and 30-somethings has transitioned away from boozy late nights in favor of early-morning meetups at the track. Suddenly, I have strong opinions on brands of gels and shoes and run belts. I spend my weekends cheering at all sorts of races. Running culture has taken over our lives. 

As it turns out, we’re part of a global trend toward marathon participation in recent decades — a phenomenon that’s been helped along further by the pandemic-era running boom.

Twenty-somethings like me are a big reason for the jump: 15 percent of NYC Marathon finishers in 2019 were in their 20s. Just four years later, in 2023, they made up 19 percent, according to the Atlantic. At the Los Angeles Marathon those same years, the proportion of 20-something runners grew from 21 percent to 28 percent. 

That growth prompted the Atlantic to dub running “the new quarter-life crisis.” And while “crisis” usually connotes some sort of negative spiral, my cohort’s new running obsession could be viewed less as a symptom of all that’s gone awry for our generation and more as a positive rebellion against it.  

Why so many young people are taking up distance running

Marathons in general are simply becoming more inclusive: Women’s participation was first allowed in the 1970s and has only recently started to achieve something like parity with men’s. There are also more finishers of color. 

But for the Gen Z demographic, another key driver is just … the way life is right now. 

“A lot of them started running during the pandemic. A lot of them were starting careers at that time, were graduating from college and maybe didn’t have a real graduation, maybe didn’t have these normal adult milestones,” says journalist Maggie Mertens, the author of the book Better Faster Farther: How Running Changed Everything We Know About Women. “They see homeownership and marriage and kids as kind of out of reach — further out of reach than even the millennial generation did.” 

That adds up to a lot of uncertainty. And what helps manage uncertainty if not a four-month, intensive training plan that calls for four to six training runs a week covering hundreds of miles, plus cross-training and stretching?

Marathon season is largely over, which means it’s an ideal time to start thinking about whether you want to run one next year.

Now, a disclaimer: I grew up a competitive swimmer and a softball player. The pandemic shut down all my favorite workout classes and basically forced me to lace up my running shoes. I’m not an especially fast runner, and I’m not setting out to break any world records. I mainly think of it as a great way to move my body, hang out with my friends, and challenge myself to go a little farther than I could yesterday. 

If that sounds like you, read on for advice on what I learned from training as a 20-something, and things to know if you’re hoping to start training, too.

Training can be a way to add structure to your life

I found that preparing for the New York City Marathon functionally required the spreadsheet-ification of my life: Sunday, long run. Monday, rest. Tuesday, 4 miles. Wednesday, 8 miles. You get it.

During the most strenuous, highest-mileage training weeks, I sometimes felt something like despair, but mostly the box-checking helped bring a sense of predictability, even when my work or personal life was up in the air. It also created new milestones where others — home-buying, having a kid — felt out of reach. 

I visited the 2024 Chicago Marathon Expo a few weeks ago to find out more for the Today, Explained podcast, and several 20-something runners had similar experiences to share.  

“You can have the worst day in the world, but the benefit of that is that you turn around and you’re like, ‘Well, at least I got my miles in,’” Taylor-Nicole Limas, 28, told me. 

For some, like Mitchell Rose, 23, training is a way to impose structure on adult life. “It kind of gives me the end-of-the-semester feel, like you’re working towards something, whereas work gets very monotonous. I’m three months into my full-time job now, and I came to the realization like, ‘Oh, this just never ends.’” 

Use running to push you to finally make big lifestyle changes

The rigor of training mandates shedding bad habits and adopting healthy ones, too. I personally found that I had to add a fourth meal to my day — just to make up for the thousands of calories burned on my training runs. I also gave up alcohol and cut back on late nights in an effort to reduce the likelihood of feeling bad on long runs (which only sometimes worked). 

Other runners told me they had to make similar commitments. 

“I’m not proud of it, but I used to vape,” Pascale Geday, 26, told me at the expo. “I’m no longer vaping. I feel like it’s made me a better athlete.” 

All these little adjustments add up to a much bigger change, says Kevin Masters, a professor of psychology at University of Colorado Denver and a former marathoner himself. 

“You really orient your day — which turns into your weeks, which turns into months — around this event,” he told Today, Explained. “That’s kind of an orienting principle for your life.” 

Training for a race can also be a way to find community

The boom in marathon participation comes amid what the surgeon general is calling a loneliness epidemic, marked by decreased participation in community organizations, faith organizations, and recreational leagues over several decades. 

This phenomenon is especially apparent among 20- and 30-somethings, who are becoming known as the “homebody generation.” One recent analysis found that they spend, on average, about two more hours per day at home than previous generations did. 

“Where people used to gain some of their purpose and meaning in life and feel affiliated with others,” from community organizations, Masters said, those “aren’t really doing it for the younger folks as much.” 

Running just might: Run-club participation is so high that it’s become a meme, and social media abounds with running influencers and content.  

“I have started a group chat with a bunch of first-time marathoners,” Limas told me. “I’m like, ‘Hey, we’re all running the marathon. … We’re all women. Why not just, when we’re stressed out, text each other?’ And they’ve all become friends because of this group chat that I started.” 

Of course, run clubs aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Rose told me that he hadn’t had luck when he tried them out. “I have a long-term girlfriend. I don’t need to go to a run club because they’re usually looking for other things other than a good workout.”   

Instead, he said, he prefers to run with just one friend: “Having someone that you can knock on the door and be like, ‘Let’s go for a run right now,’ and they’ll more often than not drop everything and be like, ‘Yeah, let’s go. Like, let’s have a great time together.’ That is another level of our friendship that I don’t think would be there otherwise.”