Last Monday was the Boston Marathon, and it was an exciting one. There were a record number of applicants for this year’s race, and there was incredible demand to be there on race day.
After a miserable year last year, when the heat decimated the field, runners had near-perfect weather. The elites finished in blazing fast times, setting records for the women and coming close for the men. And the rest of the field was pretty quick, too.
If we dig a little deeper into the data, what stories can it tell about this year’s race?
I wrote up a lengthier analysis on Medium in Runner’s Life, and if you’re not a Medium subscriber you can request a special link to read the article here.
In that analysis, I explored a collection of data — including the race results, the entry list, the Abbott World Marathon Majors Hall of Fame, and some other stats — to see what we can find out.
In the meantime, here are three specific insights from the data.
The Elites Were Fast. Really Fast.
I guess that goes without saying – considering the fact that the women set new course records.
But it’s interesting to look at their finish times in the context of what other elite runners have done in the last ten years. The visual below includes the top ten women at each Boston Marathon, going back to 2015.
If you hover over a particular dot, you’ll see the details on that finisher.
You can see the previous course record that was set back in 2014. Buzunesh Deba finished in 2:19:59.
When you look at the rest of the results from the pre-COVID era (2010-2019), it was rare for a woman to finish quicker than 2:25 at Boston.
2014 was the exception, where the entire top 10 was faster. There were a handful in 2011, and a few more in 2017 and 2019. In 2015, Caroline Rotich just dipped under 2:25 with a 2:24:55.
Since COVID, the bar has been raised. Over the last four years, almost all of the top ten women have come in under 2:25.
Still, this year’s top three sits apart from the field. Whereas the top women in the last three years have been in the 2:21-2:22 range, the top three this year finished between 2:17:22 and 2:18:06.
Sharon Lokedi was almost four full minutes faster than the next fastest runner (Peres Jepchirchir, 2022, 2:21:01).
The men did not set a new course record, but their times were almost as impressive.
The current men’s course record was set back in 2011. Geoffrey Mutai finished in 2:03:02, with Moses Mosop right on his tail. It was, at the time, a world’s best.
And for years, no one even came close. In the next few years, Meb Keflezighi came the closest – but his 2:08:37 was more than five minutes behind. In 2019, Lawrence Cherono got a little closer.
Over the last four years, as with the women, the men’s times have been creeping faster and faster.
For years, it was rare for a man to go under 2:08. Before 2011, there had only been nine men that went sub-2:08. If you extend that time period out to 2021, the number had grown to 19.
In the last four years, there have been 21 men who finished under 2:08 (22, if you count Ryan Ford, who hit 2:08 exactly this year).
Again, the bar has been raised. But even in that context, the top four men stood apart from the rest. John Korir was a full minute better than Evans Chebet’s 2023 time, and his 2:04:45 is sitting at the #3 spot for men all time.
Conner Mantz, who finished fourth this year, notched a personal best of close to three minutes. He missed the podium by four seconds, and he missed Ryan Hall’s American record by 10.
Check out the full analysis for some more detail about how fast the mass field was. Because it was also one of the fastest fields in Boston history.
Boston Is Becoming More International
This year continued a trend in which fewer runners at Boston are American and more are from around the world.
The majority of the field at Boston is still American – about 2/3. But that has been shifting over the last ten years.
The visual below shows the number of starters living in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the rest of the world. Data was excluded for 2021 and 2022 because of COVID travel restrictions, and I couldn’t find the data for 2023.
Back in 2017, 21,709 of the starters were American. That’s over 80%.
That number declined to just 19,495 this year. At the same time, the field size grew by about 2,000 this year. The relative proportion of American runners dropped to 67.5%.
The number of Canadian runners has been slowly declining, too. And runners from both the United Kingdom (typically #3 on the list) and the rest of the world are both on the rise.
The number of runners from other countries – outside the top three – doubled from 2017 (3,249) to this year (6,647).
There’s been some grumbling on the Internet that international runners – and more specifically Canadian runners – may begin to avoid American races. Including Boston.
The visual above shows the percentage of runners in a given year who registered for the Boston Marathon but did not start.
On the one hand, the percent of Canadian runners not starting the race did increase. I couldn’t find the full dataset for 2024, but I was able to find the numbers for Canadian runners – and it was 9.9% (1,537 / 1,705). So the DNS rate for Canadian runners jumped about two percent this year, and it was higher than previous years.
But all of the remaining international runners saw a steady or declining DNS rate. British runners were more likely to start this year, and the rate for other international runners was pretty stable.
So it may be likely – or at least plausible – that a small number of Canadian runners will skip Boston next year. But there’s no evidence here that international runners in general are souring on running American races.
Young Runners Are Trending Male
For years, the average age of runners at Boston has been going up. But this year saw a slight increase in the share of younger runners in the race.
The gender distribution also ticked back slightly to lean more heavily male.
When I looked more closely at the breakout of finishers by age and gender among runners under 40, there were some interesting shifts.
The 20-24 age group is pretty small. But the number of women in that age group has been shrinking, and the number of men has been increasing.
The 25-29 age group had a similar trend. This year saw a rebound in the number of women 25-29, but for the last few years it’s been down. Still the number of men has increased – shifting the distribution slightly.
But the bigger changes come when runners hit their 30’s.
In both age groups – and more sharply among runners 35-39 – the number of women is declined and the number of men has increased. Ten years ago, women were a slim majority in each of these age groups.
But for the last few years, that has flipped – and the gender gap among runners 35-39 is growing.
The full analysis includes some other examples of how the demographics of runners at Boston have been changing.
What Did You Think About the 2025 Boston Marathon?
Did you run the race? Or were you stuck at home watching it on TV, like I was?
For more about this year’s Boston, check out this quick update on Six Star Finishers and this quick update on how the results will impact the 2026 Boston Marathon Cutoff.
And again, for the full deep dive on this data, head over to Medium – or request your special link to read that analysis here.
Brian, Tremendously appreciate the work you do! I ran Boston 2025, resulting in a 6:14 buffer against the new qualifying times, so betting I won’t make the cutoff. Too close for comfort. Plan to run Jack and Jill in July, which is very fast for a big, old guy like me (8:00 faster in July ‘24 than Boston two weeks ago). My question is whether you plan to perform and publish an analysis on the Boston ‘25 split distributions, as you did for London. I found those to be very helpful in comparing year-to-year results for the “masses”! Thank you!