Feature image by mlt2005 on Flickr - CC BY 2.0
If you were on the fence about running the Twin Cities Marathon this year, then I’ve got bad news. It’s officially sold out.
Last week, I saw someone on Reddit asking about if and when the Twin Cities Marathon usually sells out. TCM had posted that 99% of the spots were taken, and they were wondering whether the race typically sells out this early.
My response was to not wait. Just a couple weeks ago, the Philly Marathon sold out – far earlier than it has in recent memory. Given the recent surge in marathon participation, big marathons that are at capacity are going to continue to sell out earlier. If they can’t get bigger, that’s what increased demand will do.
And low and behold, the next day, the Twin Cities Marathon was officially sold out. And it was indeed earlier than it has sold out in recent years. Based on the Wayback Machine, their Facebook feed, and some news reporting, here’s what I was able to piece together about the timeline over the past ten years or so.
Has the Twin Cities Marathon Sold Out Post-COVID?
Given the fact that the COVID shutdown shuffled the deck for a lot of marathons, let’s first focus on how things have gone in the last few years.
This year (2025), the Twin Cities Marathon officially sold out on July 15. That’s 82 days before race day (October 5, 2025). They announced it on their Facebook page that evening.
Last year, the race did sell out. But it was not nearly as early.
In 2024, the race didn’t sell out until September 25, 2024. That’s only 11 days before race day (October 6, 2024).
They announced it on their Facebook page that day, and the news was also reported by CBS the following day.
Twin Cities in Motion President Dean Orton was quoted in the CBS piece as saying, “For us to sell out, and even a couple of weeks before our event, that’s something we haven’t done in a while.”
So that’s a hint that in recent years, it’s definitely not common for the race to sell out months out from race day.
In 2023, the race itself was canceled at the last minute due to extreme heat. But while there were thousands of runners eagerly anticipating the race – and disappointed by that announcement – the race does not appear to have been sold out.
A review of their Facebook feed through August 1, 2023 reveals no announcement that the race was sold out. Nor was there anything mentioned in the news, which covered the race heavily due to the cancellation. Combined with Orton’s comments in the 2024 CBS piece, it’s a fair assumption that the race was in fact not sold out in 2023.
The previous year, the race did sell out – on September 21, 2022. This was 11 days prior to race day (October 2, 2022), so similar to 2024.
But this was 2022, in the wake of the pandemic, and many races were returning with reduced field sizes. While the 2022 field wasn’t drastically reduced, with 6,500 finishers it was the smallest finishing field since 2001 (other than 2021). A limit on the number of available spots would result in an earlier sell-out – or a sell-out when one otherwise wouldn’t happen.
The same was true of 2021 – when the field was drastically reduced. That year, there were only 3,200 finishers. That’s less than half of a typical year.
Registration for the race opened on April 7, 2021, as announced on Facebook. By May 14, a snapshot from the Wayback Machine shows that the race was already sold out. The previous snapshot, on April 20, still showed an option to register. So the race must have sold out at some point in late April or early May – there was no actual announcement on Facebook when registration closed.
So since COVID, the race has sold out in September twice (2022 and 2024) and sold out very early once (2021). It didn’t sell out in another year (2023). And again, 2021 should be viewed as a significant outlier – given the drastic reduction in the field size.
Has the Twin Cities Marathon Sold Out Pre-COVID?
Let’s turn back the clock to the days before COVID. Has the race historically sold out – and if so, how early did this happen?
In 2017, 2018, and 2019, there was no evidence that the race sold out.
In 2019, the website said “Registration Still Available” – even after the race took place. A Facebook post on October 1 announced that online registration would close that evening, but in person registration would be available at the expo.
In 2018, a September 14 Facebook post suggested that it was “not too late to register for the marathon.” In 2017, a September 1 Facebook post was still advertising registration for the marathon. I couldn’t find any evidence in either year that the race did sell out.
This makes sense when you look at the finisher numbers from the Twin Cities Marathon over the last 25 years. The race peaked from 2012 to 2014 with just under 9,000 finishers. 2015 and 2016 were only slightly smaller, but 2017, 2018, and 2019 were far smaller than the peak years.
So unless they intentionally limited the number of registration spots, the only logical conclusion is that demand for the race was declining and that it hadn’t sold out for several years.
I found a 2016 article in the Twin Cities Pioneer Press that added a little context to this. The article, titled “Is the 1990’s running boom over? Marathon entries drop here and elsewhere,” states that there were still bibs available days before the 2016 race and that there were bibs available on race weekend in 2015.
So from 2015 through 2019, the race did not sell out. But according to the article, the race did sell out for the 23 previous years leading up to 2015.
The Twin Cities in Motion Facebook feed provides some details on when the race sold out in those earlier years. They announced that the 2014 edition was sold out on July 14 of that year. In the previous year, they posted on July 2 that there were only 2 spots remaining, So in each year, the race sold out in the summer, a couple months before the race.
The Pioneer Press article offered one other interesting tidbit – back in 2006, the race (10,500 entries at the time) sold out in just 15 days (late April / early May).
So in the past, the race has sold out in the late spring or early summer. It consistently sold out for 23 years (1992 to 2014), and there’s specific evidence of the race selling out very early (2006) and in the summer months (2013 / 2014). I didn’t attempt to track down the remainder of the years, but given the rising popularity of the race through 2014, it’s a safe assumption that the race typically sold out by June or July.
Is This Part of a Bigger Story?
After Philly, this is the second large fall marathon to sell out earlier than usual. I haven’t systematically tracked this kind of thing before, but I’m wondering now how prevalent this is.
I know there are some other anecdotal stories. Valencia sold out almost immediately after registration opened for the 2025 race. And I seem to recall registration for the 2025 edition of Grandma’s also going quickly. When I was putting together a list of fall marathons to sign up for, I was going to include Detroit – but I was surprised to see that it had already sold out, as well.
In fact, of the ten marathons on that list, four are now sold out (Philly, Twin Cities, Marine Corps, and Wineglass). The St. George Marathon announced (back on June 11) that it was sold out, but it looks like you can still register. The half marathon is still marked as sold out, but perhaps some people pulled out of the marathon after the BAA’s new downhill rules were announced.
I’m going to take a look at some of these other sold out races to see if there’s a bigger picture emerging. The anecdotal evidence suggests that there is, but as always, it’s good to have some data to support that conclusion.
Are you aware of any other large races that have sold out earlier than usual – or at least earlier than they have since the pre-COVID peak of 2013-14? If so, drop a comment below and I’ll add it to my list of races to check out.