Are Marathons Selling Out More Quickly Than Ever?

The Richmond Marathon just sold out, and it’s not alone. It’s part of a broader trend that’s been developing the last few years along with the recent boom in marathon participation.

I first noticed this over the summer, when Philly sold out months earlier than usual. Just a couple of weeks later, Twin Cities followed suit. Then I started to dig deeper, and I kept finding more examples. As if to make sure the point was perfectly clear, the 2026 Miami Marathon sold out just a couple of days after I wrote about how it had sold out early this year.

Now, I don’t have the data to say that these races are selling out faster than ever. I didn’t comb through the last 25 years to figure that out. But I did take a look at the 50 largest races from the United States in 2024, and I researched if and when they sold out in the years 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

The New and Surprising Sellout Races

There are some races that have never sold out in their history, and people are just used to waiting until the last minute to sign up. And these days, that can spell a recipe for disaster.

Take, for example, the Los Angeles Marathon. It’s one of the biggest races in the country, but throughout its history it never sold out. Until 2024.

Last year, the Los Angeles Marathon sold out in the days leading up to the race (3/15/2024) and it was a shock. This year, the race sold out again, and the sellout date moved up to 2/4/2025. I guess some people got the hint to sign up early.

This year, the San Francisco Marathon sold out for the first time ever on July 25, 2025 – right before the weekend. The Cleveland Marathon sold out in both 2024 and 2025, about a week or two prior to race day. The Pittsburgh Marathon sold out in 2023, 2024, and 2025 – each time in early April.

The Portland Marathon has been slowly growing the last few years – from 2,115 finishers in 2019 to 2,969 in 2024. Last year, it sold out about a week or two before the race.

The St. George Marathon has been on something of a rebound. It used to be much bigger ten or fifteen years ago, before tapering off in the years leading up to COVID. The last few years, it’s slowly come back. In 2024 it sold out in early June. This year, it sold out again in early June.

Then there’s the Eugene Marathon. It’s taken a new direction since COVID, and the management team has been trying to grow and develop the race series. And it’s working. It sold out the last two years in mid-March. In 2025, it sold out again despite increasing the registration cap by about 1,000 runners. The marketing director credits the popularity of running among Gen-Z runners.

Some other races that are only just starting to sell out:

• Shamrock Marathon Weekend: Sold out in 2022, 2023, and 2025
• Madison Marathon: Sold out in 2023 and 2024. TBD for this October.
• St. Jude Memphis Marathon: Sold out in 2024. TBD for this October. Update: the race sold out on September 18, 2025.
• Hartford Marathon: Sold out in 2024. TBD for this October.

None of these races are selling out blazingly fast. Many are selling out in the days or weeks leading up to the race. But they’re all reaching capacity – capacities that are in some cases increasing – where they weren’t doing so before.

The Consistent Sellouts

Then, there are some races that used to sell out – and they still do. But they aren’t selling out crazy fast or anything.

Wineglass Marathon is a good example. It has always been popular, and it sold out in 2019. For the last three years, it has consistently sold out in mid to late June. In 2019, it didn’t sell out until August, so things have moved up a bit. But they’ve still been pretty consistent.

Mountains 2 Beach Marathon is another picture of consistency. In 2019, it sold out on March 19. It sold out each year since then, typically in March. This year, it sold out on March 20. Over that time period, the field size has stayed pretty much the same.

Charlotte’s Thunder Marathon sold out in 2019, and after a couple down years it sold out again in 2024. We’ll see what happens this year come November. Although the race did double in size from 2019 to 2024, so this might turn out to be one of those races that’s growing in popularity.

And then there’s REVEL Mt. Charleston. This is one of the longstanding REVEL races and typically their biggest. In 2019, the race sold out on January 24. I couldn’t find dates for 2024 and 2025, but the race reportedly sold out – likely in the days leading up to the race. With the upcoming changes to the Boston qualifying rules, it’ll be interesting to see what happens in February 2026.

The Faster and Faster Sellouts

The third category of races includes the races that just keep selling out faster and faster each year. There have been a couple of good examples this year, and some of them are mind boggling.

The Detroit Marathon was a real shocker. This fall race sold out for the first time in July 2024. This year, it sold out all the way back in March. It’s a popular race with a cool gimmick – running between the United States and Canada – but that’s still crazy fast to reach cspacity.

I mentioned earlier that Philly’s early sellout this year got me curious about this topic. The race hit its peak back in 2011-2012, but it hadn’t sold out for years prior to COVID. Then, in 2023 in sold out in November. The next year, the race was sold out in September. This year, it shocked people by filling up in early July.

Twin Cities is another comeback story. Earlier in its history, it routinely sold out. But that hadn’t been the case leading up to COVID. In 2022, it did sell out a reduced field in late September, but the race wasn’t sold out in 2023. In 2024, it sold out again – this time with a more typical field size – again, in September. And then, it sold out in July this year.

Some other races that I already researched:

• Grandma’s Marathon: The sellout date moved up from May to early November. Watch this registration when it opens this October.
• Dallas: After selling out in November and October, it sold out in August this year.
• Columbus: It’s gone from late September to early September. The 2025 race will be sold out any day now.
• Indy Monumental: The sellout date has been inching up from November to early October. See if that continues this year.
• Toronto Waterfront: The last three years, this has sold out in September, August, and now July.
• Boulderthon: This is a new race. It sold out in September last year and August this year, despite a growing field.
• Colorado: The last three years, their sell out date has gone from early May to late February.
• Miami: In 2022, this race sold out in November. This year, it sold out in August – after just 11 days of registration.

And here are a few more examples I dug up in my research.

California International Marathon – CIM – is a big race that typically sells out. In 2019, it sold out in late July. In 2022 and 2023, it again sold out in July. Last year, registration was a little slower. But this year, it filled up all the way back in May – faster than ever before.

Houston is another large race that’s been quietly selling out early. In 2019, the race sold out in mid December – and this was the 14th consecutive year that it sold out. In 2024, it sold out a little earlier in December and in 2025 it sold out in mid-November. In August, they announced that they were on pace to sell out even earlier this year.

The Long Beach Marathon consistently sold out in September from 2022 to 2024. And then in 2025, it sold out in late August.

And finally, there’s the Richmond Marathon. It didn’t sell out in 2019, nor did it sell out in 2022 and 2023. Last year, it sold out in November, just before race day. When I started this data collection, the 2025 race wasn’t sold out, and I probably would have listed this with the earlier group. But then it sold out on August 25.

The Races That Aren’t Selling Out – Yet

Finally there’s a group of races that still aren’t selling out – at least not consistently.

The Honolulu Marathon is one of the top five biggest races in the country. It hasn’t sold out in the past few years, and it doesn’t show signs of doing so in the future.

The Rock ‘n’ Roll San Diego Marathon used to be one of the biggest races in the country. It’s bounced back a little bit in the last few years, but it’s still far smaller than in its heyday. No sellouts on the horizon.

The Flying Pig Marathon sold out in 2023, but that’s the only year that I could find evidence of. The Colfax Marathon also sold out in 2023, and after expanding their field size it didn’t sell out in 2024 and 2025.

The Oklahoma City Marathon has been getting more popular. Over the last few years, several of the shorter race distances have started to sell out. This year saw the largest overall participation numbers – over 25,000 runners. But the main marathon still hasn’t sold out.

Some other medium sized races that haven’t sold out and don’t show signs of doing so: OC Marathon, Nashville Marathon, Rock ‘n’ Roll San Antonio, Seattle Marathon, and the Baltimore Running Festival.

The Mesa Marathon has been on an upward trajectory. In 2019, 2022, and 2023, it had ~2,000 finishers. That bumped up to 2,674 in 2024. This year, there were 3,191 finishers – a 50% increase over a few years ago. It wasn’t a sellout, but this could be a sign of things to come.

Likewise, Jersey City has been trending upwards. It’s also a new race. It had 1,944 finishers in its inaugural year (2023). That increased to 2,322 in 2024 and 3,017 this year. Leading up to the race, they advertised there were only 160 spots left, so it was probably close to selling out. Given parking and logistics, I think this race (which also has a very large half marathon) is close to its full capacity – so this could sell out next year.

The Las Vegas Marathon is another new race. It launched last February, and it was popular – but not sold out. The race shifted its date to October for 2025. It isn’t sold out yet, but we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out over the next year or two.

Finally, there’s the Every Woman’s Marathon. This race launched last year with a huge field – over 4,000 runners. Last year, it was in Savannah, Georgia. This year, it’s in Scottsdale, Arizona. Who knows what the capacity is or if it’ll sell out – but it’ll likely be big.

The Oddball Races

There are two other races I kept out of the other categories because they’re a little odd: the Disney World Marathon and the Marine Corps Marathon.

Once upon a time, the Disney Marathon was one of the largest races in the country – like 20,000 runners large. It tapered off in the years leading up to COVID, though, and in 2019 there were only about 12,000 finishers. It didn’t appear to be sold out that year.

When racing returned after COVID, though, the race has consistently sold out. But the field size hasn’t returned to its peak of 20,000. They’ve capped registration around 12,000 or 13,000 runners, and those bibs get snapped up the same day they get released. I wonder if it would still sell out – and how fast – if they maxed out the field again.

And then there’s the Marine Corps Marathon. This race is also smaller than it used to be. In the early 2010’s, it had well over 20,000 runners every year. It maintained open registration, but at it’s peak it went to a lottery system because of increased demand. In recent years, demand has fallen and it’s back to open registration. It sold out in 2023 but not in 2024.

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Marine Corps Marathon. They anticipated increased demand, and they scrapped the other events in favor of a larger marathon field. And still, the race sold out in July.

But it’s such an outlier year that it’s hard to say what will happen next year when things go back to normal.

The Marathon Boom Continues – For How Long?

The fact that new races are selling out – and that races are selling out earlier than ever – is just one more piece of evidence that marathon running is going through a massive boom in participation. As if you needed someone to tell you that.

But this also offers a gauge to measure which way the wind is blowing. The last few years, the number of finishers has been increasing, and that was a clear sign of increased participation. But with more races selling out and reaching capacity, those numbers can’t keep going up forever.\