Feature photo by Mayor Garcetti on Flickr
This week, two major marathons sold out: the Los Angeles Marathon and the Detroit International Free Press Marathon.
This is a trend I’ve been tracking since last summer. It started when I noticed that the Philly Marathon sold out in early July and the Twin Cities Month sold out later that month. Neither race typically sold out early, and you could usually wait until the fall to register.
When I started digging, I realized that this wasn’t just a couple of races. It was part of a broader trend. Among the fifty largest races in the country, more of them were selling out and they were starting to sell out earlier and earlier. In October, this reached peak frenzy when Grandma’s sold out in less than twelve hours.
This calmed down later in the fall, mostly because there weren’t any big races looming on the calendar. Some smaller fall races continued to sell out in their final days, but there weren’t any major races coming up until the early spring.
Which brings us to this week. Both the 2026 Los Angeles Marathon and the 2026 Detroit International Free Press Marathons reached capacity. Each of them did so in record time. Let’s take a quick look at the history of each.
Los Angeles Sells Out for the Third Year in a Row
The Los Angeles Marathon is consistently one of the largest races in the United States, but until recently it never reached capacity. At it’s peak, it had over 22,000 finishers (2010), and it had over 20,000 in both 2014 and 2015. But it never had to close registration.
So two years ago, it came as a shock to a lot of people when it sold out on March 15, 2024. That was only two days before the race, and there probably weren’t that many people who were waiting until the night before the race to pull the trigger and register. But still, it’s a significant milestone.
Last year, registration moved more quickly. It reached capacity on February 4, 2025. Sure, it was the 40th anniversary of the race. So maybe that ginned up popularity a bit. But it was still almost six weeks ahead of time. This definitely caught people off guard, and I’m sure there were some people who had already started training … but were waiting until the final weeks to register.
This year? They announced on January 5 that general entry for the marathon was sold out. A small number of Team TMF entries were still available, but they were gone the following day. At this point, the only option is to look around for another charity partner that’s still looking for runners.
This year’s sell out is a full two months ahead of time. Last year definitely wasn’t a fluke caused by the anniversary, and until and unless the running boom starts to die out it’ll likely sell out earlier and earlier. If you want to run in 2027, you might as well sign up as soon as you start training.
Detroit International Marathon Sells Out in a Week
Detroit is another race that has not historically sold out. The race dates back to the 1960’s, and the first time it sold out was in 2024.
That year, news reports indicated that the race sold out in mid-July. That’s months ahead of race day, so that was shocker enough.
But the following year, the timing moved up significantly. The October race sold out way back in early March. That’s months before people even started thinking about training. I remember working on a list of popular fall marathons in the spring … and that’s when I realized that registration for the race was no longer available.
When you look at the last two years, the number of finishers at the marathon has been roughly the same – about 3,600. This suggests that the race is already at about its logistical capacity. Otherwise, they likely would have bumped up the number of available bibs in 2025.
So maybe it’s not a surprise that this year’s race sold out even earlier. But it is shocking that it sold out on January 7. Registration only opened on January 1, so it took less than a full week for the race to reach capacity.
Not every race is going to get to the point where it sells out days after opening. But once it happens, I doubt it’ll change until general interest in marathons starts to wane. So if you want to run Detroit in 2027 … you better stay up on New Year’s Eve and register as soon as its open.
What’s On the Horizon?
There likely won’t be any other headline grabbing sell outs for a while. A lot of the super popular races are in the second half of the year, and the spring races that do sell out often sell out closer to race day.
The next big one to keep an eye out for is CIM. Last year, the race sold out in May, and that was much earlier than in previous years. They offer some insights into the progress of registration on their website. Their standard entry is already sold out, and the unprotected (no transfers or deferrals) is close to being full. Last year, it wasn’t until March that those two categories were full – and then it took two more months for the more expensive gold registrations to fill up.
In the short term, keep an eye on Atlanta and Mt. Charleston. After that, Mountains 2 Beach and Eugene often sell out in March (for an April race) and Pittsburgh sells out in April (for a May race). Thus far, my local race (Jersey City) hasn’t sold out, but it’s been close to capacity and it may sell out for the first time this year (although likely much closer to race day).
As long as races are continuing to sell out earlier and earlier, it’s a sign that the boom in marathon participation is still on the upswing. So until we start to see these sell outs calm down, you can expect there to be more finishers at other races throughout the country – and more people competing for limited numbers of bibs at major races like Boston.
And let this also be your daily reminder – if you plan to run a race, do not wait to register. In the past, you may have been able to delay registration until the weeks before a race to make sure you got your training in. At this point, you should sign up early so that you don’t find yourself scrambling for an alternative when your goal race is suddenly sold out.