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

The Unkle wrote:

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.

Huh?? Opposite Day? Running is WAY more "popular" now than in the 70s/80s.

I think you picked a marathon that is not a good comparison and 1996 was close to the bottoming out of the running's popularity -- Oprah had run her marathon only two years before. Chicago is now a destination race for faster people looking to have faster people to run with.

A better comparison would be Grandma's 1981 and Grandma's 1981. Both good weather years. One in the middle of the first running boom. One more recent.

1981:

Sub 3:00:00 -- 646

Total finishers -- 3200 (it looks like the clock was turned off at 4:30:00 or at least marathonguide.com does not record people after this time)

2018:

Sub 3:00:00 -- 339

Total finishers -- 6093 (3796 finished in under 4:30:00)

Two Words: East Africans

Once the Kenyans and Ethiopians started the complete and total domination of all distance events, road racing, track, XC.. most people stopped paying attention to the top of the sport and just focused on the fitness aspect of it.

Call it whatever ugly name you want, racism, nationalism, xenophobia, but people generally want to follow sports stars that come from their home towns, colleges, states, etc.. When a horde of nameless interchangeable East Africans are all at the top nobody cares any more.

Ackley wrote:

I think you picked a marathon that is not a good comparison and 1996 was close to the bottoming out of the running's popularity -- Oprah had run her marathon only two years before. Chicago is now a destination race for faster people looking to have faster people to run with.

A better comparison would be Grandma's 1981 and Grandma's 1981. Both good weather years. One in the middle of the first running boom. One more recent.

1981:

Sub 3:00:00 -- 646

Total finishers -- 3200 (it looks like the clock was turned off at 4:30:00 or at least marathonguide.com does not record people after this time)

2018:

Sub 3:00:00 -- 339

Total finishers -- 6093 (3796 finished in under 4:30:00)

I might also add that what you say is competitive and what I say is competitive are not the same. I wouldn't put 3:00:00 in the marathon as being competitive, that's just someone who runs fairly consistently. The top end competition has been getting deeper and deeper since forever. But sure, there may have been more average joes putting in 40+ mile weeks back then to break 3 hours than there are now. I imagine the sub 2:30's from 1981 at Grandma's was not at the same level as in 2018.

And why is Chicago a bad comparison? Because it's too big? It's one of the biggest ones, and it proves my point that a lot of the top people have all funneled to the fastest competitive races. I could only look at 1996, but if you can find early 1980's results, tell me how many guys were running under 2:30.. I doubt it was more than the over 100 we've had for multiple years now, it may be more than the 33 from 1996, but probably not over 50 (probably still not over 33).

SummerSlogger wrote:

Two Words: East Africans

Once the Kenyans and Ethiopians started the complete and total domination of all distance events, road racing, track, XC.. most people stopped paying attention to the top of the sport and just focused on the fitness aspect of it.

Call it whatever ugly name you want, racism, nationalism, xenophobia, but people generally want to follow sports stars that come from their home towns, colleges, states, etc.. When a horde of nameless interchangeable East Africans are all at the top nobody cares any more.

This could explain fan interest in running as a sport.

But I don't think that it explains the change in how people approached being runners. And the apparent magnitude of the change is interesting and perplexing. Regarding numbers, I suppose that it all depends on who you hang out with, and so while I don't quite accept Amby's apparent comment about 70 mpw being "entry level" (or thereabouts), I do think (as someone running at that time) that there is a pretty big difference between what the average newish runner did then versus now. Back then, I think that many more people dove in and got fairly serious immediately, did at least respectable mileage (30, 40, 50-something, and higher, depending on interest in the marathon) and treated races as the hurt fests that most of us think of them as.

Somehow - and perhaps starting in the late 80s or 90s - that seems to have changed pretty dramatically. Maybe it was the advent of charity runs and such. When a race isn't advertised as a race, perhaps it affects how people view it more than we might have realized.

It's also worth noting that while many more seemed to get quite serious quite quickly, that's not to say that all of them - or perhaps even a very high percentage of them - stayed that way. In other words, I'm not sure that there were more life-long runners created back then. But surely lots of folks who got into it quickly and seriously, and then moved on to other things after a few years.

For myself and I'm guessing many others, the main problem was the 1996 reference point. That's long after (~10 years, or more) anyone thinks of as being the heyday of American road racing.

About deepness, I suspect that the numbers don't support your assertions - at all but the truly current world-class speeds. For American marathons, anyway, pick 3:00, pick 2:30, pick 2:20, pick 2:15, whatever, and I'm guessing that you'll see 80s era races being typically (and often significantly) deeper than their more recent editions.

Your last paragraph sums it up nicely. Runners trained hard, raced hard, and then "retired" at age 30 after realizing that they were not getting faster, not enjoying it, or were just physically and emotionally spent. I don't know of anyone from that era that said, "You know what? I'm gonna' be a healthy age-grouper running marathons until I am in my 80s!". There were far more serious masters runners giving it a last go and far fewer man-children trying to be local champions at age 35.

Then came charity runs, John "The Penguin" Bingham, couch-to-race programs, Oprah, and Runner's World magazine changed from covering races and racers to fluffy lifestyle and motivational content. Running became a fitness activity and a "race" was just a big moving party of high fives and aspirational thinking. Nowadays, it has morphed into influencers and body positive motivation for 95% of people that sign up for a bib.

I think the crucible of this argument is the idea of running vs. participating. As a result of Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers running became super popular as did exercise in general. While there have always been athletes the average American wasn't doing a lot of exercise for the sake of exercise in the 1950s or 1960s and when they did it was often things like organized sports such as basketball, baseball, tennis for the more well healed. My grandfather was in good shape in his 40s and 50s but never ran or biked or went to the gym as an adult. He did play basketball a few nights a week and golfed every weekend. People in general were more fit on average as walking was a much more common mode of transportation, the American Car culture was just taking off, children spent more time outdoors and people were less sedentary.

Starting in the 70s the idea of exercising for one's health really took off. Running became super popular as did aerobics, gyms proliferated, biking started to get popular and there was even a magazine publication dedicated to walking. As a result the average runner was actually pretty fast in the 1980s as they were taking it more seriously than the average runner today.

People who signed up for races whether a 10K or Marathon tended to be individuals that ran nearly every day as part of their routine. The so called hobby joggers tended to put in 40+ miles a week and as as result the times for various races showed it. I started running in 1987 and my local 10K which first started in1976 used to have dozens of people sub 36 and over 100 sub 39 whereas today the numbers are a faction of that. Sure the winner might lay down a 31 or 32 but the field thins considerably. Today a lot of people run a few times a week on a treadmill and sign-up for 5Ks b/c lets face it if you are in any amount of reasonable shape its not hard to finish a 5K.

In the 80s there were no finisher medals unless it was some insanely hard race like an ultra, people ran b/c they liked running.

What's interesting is I've noticed that the elite runners have gotten faster and kids are running at younger and younger ages. I ran a number of races in 1988 at age 11 and even a large event like Falmouth or Litchfield Hills, there would only be a handful of us under 12 and not much more under 14. These events drew a lot of HS students but the times that won the younger age groups were much slower than today. I've run 5 and 10Ks that only had fields of less than 500 but had many dozen kids under the age of 12 running mainly as a result of running clubs. Some of the times laid down are impressive, I was out kicked at one Octoberfest by a 14 year old who ran a 16:30 which was virtually unheard of when I was running in the late 80s. Sure the talent existed on the track but you didn't see it as much on road races which were much more adult oriented then.

in the late 70s and 80s you had more people running seriously but fewer people running overall. I'd say the majority of hobby joggers were doing sub 8 minute miles whereas today I would imagine if you looked at the median time of regular runners it would be over 9 minutes. You may have more people running and more races but the average participant is much slower.

That said with specialized training and improvements in shoes you also have people running faster and faster times. I'd say the elites are fasters, there is more younger runners but also more older runners. When I started runners it was rare to see many people past their 60s finishing races, sure they existed but in a small % today I see people in their 80s coming in and some of the 70 year old have pretty good times. Perhaps they were the original running boomers of the 70s and early 80s and kept it up.

I agree. I've compared my race times / finish place from races in the 1980 - 1985 timeframe and maybe in terms of total people "running" there are more but in terms of the depth of fields it was far, far more competitive. My Boston PR from 1983 was 2:33 and I think I placed 380th or 400th. For the 2017 Boston this would have been 84th place. When I've looked back at data from other races during this period I see a similar trend. The very top runners are better today and there are more people "running" but finishing in the top 25 or top 100 in a big race was more difficult back in the day

Good ole days wrote:

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.

The libs did it.

kmaclam wrote:

The Unkle wrote:

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.

Huh?? Opposite Day? Running is WAY more "popular" now than in the 70s/80s.

That is just not true. Running was much bigger in 1986 then now.

Yes! It seemed much more popular and 'local' during the mid to late 80's. Loved Running and Racing...

Ahhh, Tiger Jayhawks. There were some great flats back then. Purist flats. A slab of EVA and an snug upper. Not all the gimmicks that you see nowadays. And we trained in flats. Pretty sure I wouldn't want to try that these days. I still have a pair of Jayhawks, NIB, that stay in my closet. Yeah, holding onto the past, and the memories of Deek, Jones, Sinclair. Baretto, Curp, Eyestone, Brantley. Better days.

Good thread. I'll add a couple of things: (1) the aging of the Baby Boomers, specifically more of them having kids and having older kids, and (2) related to the previous point, the economic crash of 1987.

I'm 47 now, and I distinctly remember those years as being the ones where my Boomer parents went from hanging out with all their friends at dinner parties and talking about Dallas and Dynasty, to a lot of household stress. And running was definitely one of the fads that suffered from those generational events.

This isn't really part of the cause, but I also remember that by the late 1980s, ESPN started to have actual programming to put on the air, so there were fewer and fewer televised road races. I remember coming home from elementary school and seeing random 10Ks in between Roy Firestone interviews and bull riding contests.

Dont have another kid you will be miserable the kids will be miserable and it will end in divorce anyways. Just leave if it's her final ultimatum. She should have made it clear to you before you got married and before you had kids that was a deal breaker immature and manipulative on her part.

Another common variation was the 30, 40, or 50-something that got into it quick and serious for a few years, and then lost interest. I was a teen distance runner in the late 70s and early 80s, and saw a number of these peers of my parents doing this. Perception of time seems to be different when you're younger, but I remember a number of times being startled by how fast a neighborhood dad would go from non-runner to Joe Road Racer......and a few years later, certainly not racing, if still running at all.

Of course, I'm sure that that still happens, but perhaps not nearly as often.

And it did serve as a bit of an education in human nature. As a kid who loved running, and started very early, it helped teach me that people do things for different reasons. It might have been easy for me to assume that anyone doing something intensely must really like it. But a dynamic like the one above obviously suggested that there were lots of other variables - general competitiveness, vanity, interests that simply shifted more quickly, etc. And yes, it does kind of suck when you learn - and are repeatedly reminded - that people who "love" something FAR less than you can completely kick your a** in it !!!

80s runners, today joggers. Quantity has increased at expense of quality.

80s you ran to compete and got water after race from a garden hose. You downplayed your training because you didn’t want to give away any secrets.

Today, you walk a couple of miles and get medal, shirt, groceries and Timmy gets one cent on the dollar so you can feel like you are making a difference. You post every activity like it is an accomplishment.

There are different layers to the sport of running. Are we talking about road running exclusively, competitive road running, cross country, fan base, or media coverage? Because you'll get different answers for each.

Road running is more popular now than ever. More races, more participation. However for the most part the races themselves are not very competitive. And that goes from weekend 5K and 10Ks to marathons. There was late 70s-into the mid or late 80s American heyday in road running at the elite/sub elite level and it was popular in the press. That has leveled off, but amazingly more often than not, the times they ran back then were as fast or faster than most athletes today. Check those 15K, 10 mile, and even 10K times from back then. Also, the road races back in the 70s and early were overwhelmingly male and younger male (under 40) dominated. Now more women and masters runners participate/race.

The sport hit sort of a lull in the 90s, and while there were some really good top Americans (Kennedy, Williams, Jennings et al.) the depth wasn't there. And participation rates waned until the 2nd running boom, starting in the mid-late 1990s. There has a been a resurgence at international performance since Meb/Deena had breakout performances at the 2004 Olympics, and that continues.

Meanwhile, however, cross country at the high school level and its competitiveness at the college level has only only grown in the past 20 years. And that's in spite of all the growth from soccer.

Post collegiately, for elite and emerging elite, that has changed a lot. Back in the day, it seemed that more kept going for a number of years and there were more informal/or formal training groups. Now it's go pro or go home (get a contract or get a job). Letsrun itself promotes that. Either you're 3:33/13:06 (4:02/14:52 for women) by age 23-24 or you're a bum who needs to be making $450K a year and making angry-hateful comments on this forum.

And now, the cool kids do ultras and trails.

Advances in technology has slowed people down. The average Joe is much fatter now. Watch an 80s movie and you'll notice skinny people everywhere.