Trail Mix | Asia bucks global trends in road running with a young market promising more growth
- Participation in road running races in Asia has increased 169 per cent in the past five years, according to a new report
- Running marathons was the ultimate goal, but it is no longer ‘special’ as ultramarathons and trail running explode in popularity
Every day, week in week out, people across the world are running. Over the years, millions have participated in races of varying differences. But what exactly does the global state of running look like?
Jens Jakob Andersen, founder of the website RunRepeat.com, teamed up with the International Association of Athletics Federations to crunch the numbers. They analysed nearly 108 million results from over 70,000 road running races since 1986, and published their results in a report titled “The Global State of Running 2019”, released last month at the IAAF’s Global Running Conference in China.
One of the key findings was: running is in decline.
From the turn of the millennium until 2016, the world saw an inexorable rise in the number of people participating in running races. From well below two million in 2001, the number climbed steadily for five years before skyrocketing beginning in 2006, hitting a peak of 9.1 million 10 years later. The last two years, however, have seen a dip, with participation falling by 13 per cent since 2016.
The researchers can’t say for sure whether this is a short-term blip or a long-term trend, and don’t have a clear-cut explanation for the decline. But one hypothesis is that running is no longer seen as special.
“Ten years ago, running a marathon was the ultimate goal for many athletes. Not many did it. It attracted a certain audience,” the authors wrote. “Then a group of less experienced athletes joined the pack. The trend kept going and, at some point, the extreme athletes did not find the marathon extreme anymore. They did not feel special, which was an important element of running the marathon. Because of this, the ultramarathon, trail running, the Ironman and so on exploded in popularity.”
