Why Did Everyone Start Running?
If it feels like everyone you know started running this year, you’re not making it up. Race participation passed pre-pandemic levels, run club participation jumped 59% in a single year, and the 2026 London Marathon pulled a record 1.1 million ballot applications. After 2024, running quietly stopped being a solo fitness habit and turned into the thing people do to see each other.
Something shifted, and the data finally caught up to the group chat. The running boom is real, it’s measurable, and it isn’t just more people jogging. It changed who runs, why they run, and what a run is even for. Here’s what happened, and what it means if you’re the one who just laced up.
The boom, by the numbers
Start with participation. According to RunSignup’s 2024 RaceTrends report, the average race grew about 8.2% over the year, and overall race participation finally passed its pre-pandemic 2019 level for the first time since COVID. Marathon finisher numbers were up 26% year on year.
Then the records started falling. The title for the world’s largest marathon got broken twice in one year, first in Berlin, then at the TCS New York City Marathon with over 56,000 finishers. The 2025 Paris Marathon set its own participation record at 56,950 runners, and 51% of them were running a marathon for the very first time.
The clearest sign of how many people want in: the 2026 London Marathon received 1.1 million ballot applications. For scale, that’s roughly the number of people who finish a marathon worldwide in an entire year, all chasing one start line.
What actually changed after 2024
Running had a moment in 2020 too, but that one was different. It was people stuck at home, looking for something to do alone. This boom is the opposite. It’s built around other people.
Strava’s Year in Sport report, drawn from more than 135 million people across 190-plus countries, found run club participation up 59% in 2024, and runs logged in groups of 10 or more up 18%. People didn’t just start running. They started running together, and that’s the part that turned a fitness trend into a culture shift.
Run clubs became the plan, not the training
“Run clubs over nightclubs” started as a joke and became the actual data. Strava’s report found social connection is now a lead reason people move at all. Among Gen Z, 66% said they made new friends through a fitness group, 55% said social interaction was their main reason for joining, and one in five said they met a date through a group activity.
So the run isn’t really the point. The standing plan is. A Saturday you don’t have to organize, with people who actually show up, ending with everyone hanging around afterward. That’s what people were missing, and running happened to be the thing that solved it.
Who’s showing up now
Younger, and newer. Under-25s now make up over 10% of major marathon fields, double their share from five years ago, and Gen Z has been the group driving road race sign-ups back up. A big chunk of the people at any start line this year had never run one before. Half the Paris field, remember, was doing it for the first time.
It’s not only the roads, either. Trail and ultra grew even faster. Ultra-distance races between 50 and 100 miles saw a 77% jump in participation in 2024, and UTMB Index race starts in early 2025 ran 2.4 times higher than the same stretch of 2022, with 42% of those runners racing a trail for the first time. The edges of the sport grew as fast as the middle.
If you’re the one who just started
Then you’re the story, not a latecomer to it. The whole boom is built on people in their first season, and that includes me on the long-distance side. I ran my first half marathon in May, deep into lifting for years but new to actually going long. Being new to something isn’t the same as being behind.
The trap is thinking you need a fast time or an athlete’s schedule before any of it counts. You don’t. Maybe you run a fast half someday, the YET is real, and the 40-minute run you squeeze in around a full-time job counts the whole time you’re chasing it. Both things are true at once.
The easiest way in is other people. Find a no-drop run club where every pace is welcome, and when you want a start line of your own, our open entry race picks list races you can register for today, no qualifier, no lottery. The Dispatch has the date of the first SUOR SOCIETY crew run in San Diego.
Because running turned social. After 2024, run clubs, group runs, and races became the way people see each other, not just a fitness habit. Strava logged a 59% jump in run club participation in one year, and social connection is now the top reason people say they work out.
The pandemic gave running a bump in 2020, but that was mostly people running alone. The current boom took off in 2024, and it looks different. It's group-first, younger, and built around showing up with other people.
Yes. Race participation has passed 2019 levels for the first time since the pandemic, with races growing about 8.2% on average in 2024 and marathon finisher numbers up 26% year on year.
They solved two problems at once: a standing plan to move, and a place to meet people. In one survey, 66% of Gen Z said they made new friends through a fitness group and one in five met a date there. The run is the excuse. The people are the reason.
Not even close. At the 2025 Paris Marathon, 51% of the field was running a marathon for the first time. First-timers aren’t behind the boom, they are the boom. If you want a low stakes way in, join a run club before you ever pin on a bib.
