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Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Tutman52 — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:21:58 GMT

Thanks for all your replies! You know what? The incrdibly low number seems to be holding and consistent with what I can observe in my college community of 12,000. Even with the very athletic clientel of the college kids, I still could not come up with more than 10 names of marathoners among the people in my town! I am including both the staff and students and considering those I know who even had done at least one in their lifetime! I asked around for people who know of any others within our community. I keep coming up with the same few names. Marathon finishers as a group is indeed quite small and is indeed quite commendable if you make it into this group however you did it.

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

crl8686 — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 06:01:54 GMT

I agree that the marathon distance is the holy grail of running - it is the ultimate classic distance. Personally I race almost entirely shorter distances (5K/10K) and until recently had little desire to run anything longer. Then I decided to challenge myself a bit, so I trained for and raced a couple of 15K's and two half marathons. Now I figure I should do one marathon just for the challenge - at any reasonable pace - to "conquer the beast", so to speak. Otherwise I'll always be wishing that I did.

Good point about Runners' World and how they report on the marathon distance. Indeed, a few months ago they published an article on optimizing training for various distances. Unfortunately I didn't save the issue so I can't quote it directly; however, I remember them referring to 10K's as "short distance running". I'd always thought of 10K's as middle distance!

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

bellsway — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 23:56:20 GMT

You're right Marykb! We need the proper perspective. I've heard the one tenth percent number as well. When the average Joe on the street hears that you've run a marathon, they are really impressed. They are more interested about what it was like. I work in a gym. When you tell someone there you've run a marathon the next question is usually, "What was your time?" The impression is everybody is doing it. Be proud of that half marathon and when and if the time comes to do your marathon know you've entered a select group.

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Marykb — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:50:37 GMT

Interesting topic. I think the statistic I have always heard (I have no sources to back it up) is less than 1/10 of 1% have run a marathon. Dunno if that is world wide, dunno if that counts repeat runners or whatever.

But no matter the exact answer it is interesting to see that it is a miniscule number any way you look at it. That really gives me perspective. As someone who has run a Half Marathon, but not yet a Full, I have always felt second rate in the running community. If you hang around on Runner's World, for example, EVERYONE seems to not only run marathons, but run them regularly. They are all "BQ" this and "BQ" that. People like me are hoping to one day run at least ONE marathon just for the accomplishment of doing it. (BQ? I don't think so!)

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Cuneiform — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:03:47 GMT

I will take a stab at it.

407K people that have finished marathons in the US. There are

303million people in the US, so roughly .14% of the US population.

Remove all the people that ran more than one marathon, and you are

getting down to at best 1/10th of a percent.

80% of the humans on earth live in poverty, many don't even have access to clean drinking water...

running around for fun is probably not high on the priority list. So, out of 6.7 billion people you have 1.34 billion that have enough

resources to maybe run the thing. 27% of those are under 14 years old and 3.5% are over 70 (yeah I know people over 70 run marathons but not

many).

So... of the 1.34 billion that could run you are now down to

93,130,000 potential runners. Lets use the US percentage (a high

estimate no doubt) of .10% of these "eligible" world runners.... you

get 1,308,820.

1,308,820 is .019% of the total world population .... I would guess that number off and is way too high.

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Billiken on the Run — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 18:05:37 GMT

That's a good question and I don't know the answer. I would assume that it's just the total number that have finished one - so if someone finished 10 he/she would probably be counted 10 times. It probably also includes foreigners. I think it would be nearly impossible to come up with a precise number for any given year or the cumulative number. Safe to say it's a small group for sure.

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Tutman52 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:56:38 GMT

Now does that count comprises just the individuals who finished at least one marathon, or are these marathons finished, which could included multiple finishes within a year by some indiviuals?

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Billiken on the Run — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:17:54 GMT

WikiAnswers.com has that 407,000 runners finished marathons in the US in 2007. That's about one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire US population in that year.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_the_population_run_marathons

Re: What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Tutman52 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 17:09:06 GMT

Well, someone in my office suggested it is probably more like 0.07%, less than one out of a thousand? What do you think?

What percent of population are marathon finishers?

Tutman52 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 16:58:26 GMT

Hey does anyone can come up with an answer to this one? What percent of all of us humans have done at least one marathon?. I heard somewhere that it is about 0.7%. Does that seem right to you folks out there?