Was the mid 1980s the peak of road racing and distance running in US in terms of being popular

Yes. Next!

1000 americans broke 2:30 in the marathon in 1983. A few years later the numbers were much lower. In 1986 I finished 178 our of 738 when I ran my PR in the marathon. I would have finished 10th in 2014 in the same town with the same number of runners as there were in 1986.

How weird, there's probably over 10x more people running than 86/87, so no idea where you got that from. Running is near its highest ever popularity.

Maybe the media aspect has changed though, as with a lot of things.

Maybe...... wrote:

How weird, there's probably over 10x more people running than 86/87, so no idea where you got that from. Running is near its highest ever popularity.

Maybe the media aspect has changed though, as with a lot of things.

It depends on your definition of “running.” Let’s be honest what many of these people do at these “races” is not really running. Being 70 pounds overweight and waddling through a street is not really running. In contrast back in the 70s and 80s there was a lot more real runners. Mostly because people weren’t as fat back then.

Well, a race was a RACE back then, not a community charity fitness event. You showed up to compete, from the winner to the last place finisher. That’s a broad generalization, but mostly true.

From a competitive perspective "Yes"; from a colored chalk throwing, costume wearing, stroller pushing perspective, "No".

Runners were a LOT faster in the 80ies.

The quality of the runners running was a lot higher.

But I would say running is a lot more popular now. More people are running. But they are all a lot slower. There should be a lot more fast runners now because of more people running but the opposite is true.

1986 everyone was running wrote:

Show of hands! Was 1986 or 1987 the peak of running being popular? Everyone ran; they used to have weekly shows on like Danskin Running and Racing, races were every week, pros would battle it out week in, week out, and they had multiple running magazines at the news stands. Local races were also deep with talent! Everyone was running!

Late 70s to maybe 1985 was the peak.

With so many great Americans winning top races.

Once foreign runners began to dominate, particularly Africans, it slipped in popularity.

Runners in the late 1970s/early 1980s were more serious about running. There is a picture of me in a small local 10k from this era when I am about 14 years old. There are at least 10 guys in the picture running faster than 6:00 pace -- I believe I finished the race in about 37:00 minutes. The slightly overweight dads on my street that ran finished 10k races at faster than 7:00 pace.

In a recent podcast interview, Amby Burfoot said that the entry level committment was 70 miles a week and everyone (it was primarily men running) was trying to break 3:00 in the Marathon. As Amby tells it, after the mid 1980s, running declined in popularity until Oprah ran a marathon in 1994 and more women and people not interested in fast times started running.

Yes, there is a difference between training and exercising. One leads to true fitness specific to the activity. The other mostly justifies that second donut these days.

I think you need to define popularity before you answer this. There are way more people running and entering races today than there were in the '80s but races have become less competitive in many cases and there is very little media interest in them, In the '80s there was more media coverage, you could occasionally find a road race covered by Sports Illustrated The New York and Boston Marathons had national TV coverage. That interest really faded once Africans started winning everything. But people entering races don't seem to care much about who wins those races.

I noticed recently that every local running event is first and foremost a fundraiser, and a running competition second.

i wonder if part of the reason is soccer exploding in popularity over the past 30 years.

That and triathlons and cycling as well as other sports that invited participation.

HRE wrote:The New York and Boston Marathons had national TV coverage.

Do they even televise these two marathons nationally anymore? I remember the NYC marathon being televised on either ABC or NBC early on a Sunday morning. Great way to start the day.

I think the late 70s early 80s were the peak for the first running boom. Late 80s were kind of the beginning of the end.

The big difference back in those days was that most aspiring pros had day jobs. People would get out of college and just keep training and racing. You did not have to get sponsored and join a training group to be able to compete on a pro level. You just found some fast guys to train with and go out and race whenever there was good prize money available. There wasn't a big demarcation between elite runners and the rest of the field. So, everyone believed that they had a shot if they just trained hard after college. And pure amateurs also saw themselves as having a chance to move up the ranks if they had talent.

For the rest of the pack back in those days, the marathon was considered by most to be an elite event for only the most serious runners. While there were plenty out there just running for the accomplishment of completing a marathon, by and large the majority of marathoners were running for time and training hard.

101 pounds of fun wrote:

1000 americans broke 2:30 in the marathon in 1983. A few years later the numbers were much lower. In 1986 I finished 178 our of 738 when I ran my PR in the marathon. I would have finished 10th in 2014 in the same town with the same number of runners as there were in 1986.

Saying you'd place better in some random race does not really mean much. There has been a trend of good runners only running competitive races and not some random local race. And there has also been a trend of a lot of road races dropping their prize money. So that local race you're talking about may have had all of the top local people, as well as some further away people who were trying to win prize money. So it was pretty competitive. Now I'm guessing there isn't much prize money to be worth traveling for, and the top local people do some competitive state or national marathon instead of wasting a marathon effort at a small marathon.

I found Chicago marathon historical results going back to 1996, there were only 33 sub 2:30 men that year. In 2019 there were 131 men under 2:30, supporting the trend that top runners show up to top races now and there are generally more fast people over time. And before someone says it was only because of the shoes, in 2014 there were 78 men under 2:30, still more than double the number from 18 years earlier. In 2005 there were 49 men under 2:30 or 1.5 times that from 9 years prior. It seems the depth increases by 50% every 10 years. It's likely there will be 200 men under 2:30 before the year 2030 comes around... So it's generally a steady increase, more and more men run under 2:30 at the Chicago marathon every year. This trend will likely continue unless there is some reason a shift in fast runners being diluted to other races. The only way I see that happening is if there's suddenly a bunch of prize money at local races such that 2:20-2:30 type gunners can make a few thousand dollars running their local races and only the true top people are left seeking the Chicago prize money. But right now there's no incentive for these people to run by themselves at the front of a local marathon and run 2:26 and making no money from that effort, they're better off being surrounded by a couple dozen other runners also running around 2:25.

Running Glory Days wrote:

HRE wrote:The New York and Boston Marathons had national TV coverage.

Do they even televise these two marathons nationally anymore? I remember the NYC marathon being televised on either ABC or NBC early on a Sunday morning. Great way to start the day.

Good question. I think Boston is on ESPN2 but won't swear to it. And I can't recall watching New York recently but that could just be my memory.

86/87 was still the first generation wave of "running boom" runners. The boom happened after Frank won the Munich marathon, then the kids who were kids then ran their fastest in the mid-80s.

Participation rates are higher now, but the level of competition is nothing by comparison. Courses were open to cars again at 25 minutes for a 5K, 45 minutes for a 10K, and after 3:20 for a marathon. A time I ran for a half marathon in 1985, and finished sixth, would have won that same event, on the same course, all but two years since that time.

I had stacks of VHS tapes - full of road races and track meets that were on regular TV non-stop. NYC and Boston, Falmouth, Phoenix, World XC, Rotterdam, Fukuoka.

The shoes we raced in were fast, way better than the Jayhawks and Ohboris that came before, but they still wrecked our legs. We're the ones you might see hobbling around now. Maybe.