Feature image by David Lisnard on Wikimedia Commons – CC BY SA-4.0 When I started collecting and analyzing data on marathons a couple years ago, Paris was not on my radar at all. I mostly paid attention to American races, along with the international races that were part of the Majors. But Paris is a … Read more
This morning, I ran the Jersey City Marathon – for the fourth time. I ran the inaugural race in 2023, and it’s become my go to spring race. It’s close to home, so it doesn’t require significant travel. That also means there are lots of friends and acquaintances who either run, spectate, or volunteer. And … Read more
Are you the kind of person who likes a good challenge? Do you finish all the side quests in games and try to earn all of the achievements? Well if you’re a runner, there’s a similar way to incorporate this obsessive tendency into your running: run every street in town. I’d seen people talk about … Read more
When I was younger, I’ll admit that I was a fair weather runner. I often picked things up in the spring and tapered off in the late fall. This minimized my discomfort – and also severely limited my long term development as a runner. In the spring of 2020, I got back into running. I … Read more
Feature image from Governor Healy on Flickr. This week, the Boston Athletic Association released the entry list for the 2026 Boston Marathon. Athletes can log into Athletes’ Village to see their corral assignment, but that isn’t publicly available. The only information in the searchable entry list is a runner’s name, age, city, state, country of … Read more
Feature photo by Sgt. Chancellor Reynolds – Public Domain The 2025 Marine Corps Marathon was the 50th anniversary of the event, and it was larger than ever. The women’s winner, Tessa Barrett, set a new course record. But after word got out that her time – 2:34:08 – wasn’t actually going to qualify her for … Read more
Feature photo (c) Kevin Morris – Courtesy of Houston Marathon Last weekend was the 2026 Houston Marathon – a premier event that kicks off the new year in American marathoning. After a lull over the holidays, this usually marks the first large, fast event of the year – with a considerable numbers of BQs, a … Read more
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 … Read more
For some reason, it can be hard to find solid information on the largest marathons in the United States. A few years back, I was looking for a list of the largest races in the country. What I ended up finding was a collection of listicles that mixed different methodologies for counting the field size … Read more
Feature photo by Steven Pisano on Flickr – CC BY 2.0 When I did a deep dive on the data from the 2025 New York City Marathon, I included a breakdown of where runners were from across the world and across the country. Just over 30% of runners are international. Of American runners, the biggest … Read more