How many people would run marathons if they couldn’t tell anyone they did it?

A lot less. Maybe just 10-15% of today's runners would run marathons.

I would say even less than that. If there was no Facebook, Instagram and Strava I imagine people would take up hobbies that are more enjoyable. People only do hard physics challenges to tell other people to get a reaction

I don’t care to run a marathon even in today’s world where I can tell people about it. I also don’t care about social media or telling random people anything about my life.

I don't know about the vow of silence, but people still ran marathons before social media.

This is actually a good sociological question. Thanks for posting/asking it.

It could be studied and framed this way, "what percentage of marathoners are running for the sake of the outcome (time or place) vs. which percentage has some other reason for doing a marathon."

• Group 1 - cares about PR, time, place, or relative performance to previous marathons
• Group 2 - uses the marathon as an external goal/motivator, an cornerstone of a lifestyle that is healthy and active but doesn't care about time, place, or PRs. This group includes runners who want to stay active in the sport but can no longer race shorter distances.
• Group 3 - does a marathon just to "check it off the bucket list" but doesn't really let it become part of his/her identity. This group includes a lot of runners I know. No harm here either. It is good to have tried the marathon; you never know if you might like it.
• Group 4 - is honestly disinterested in the marathon itself and only sees the race as a means to accrue social status via Instagram and other online social-media platforms.

I think the last group is pretty small. And I assume this is the group you were referring to. So, to answer your question, I think most (but not all) people would still run the marathon even if they couldn't post about it on social media.

I was just looking over my Insta and Strava selfies from the course and my finisher pics, and I'm pretty sure that like 80% of the fellow runners in the background probably wouldn't have run if they couldn't tell other people.

I ran on a squad of 50 or so guys for XC in high school. Of the top 15 which were sub 18:00 min 5k guys, I think I'm the only one who still runs 25 plus miles a week. I do it because I enjoy running for its own sake, but they all stopped once they weren't beating people competitively anymore. I think the percentage of people who would run, particularly something as long intensive as the marathon if they couldn't tell anyone would be very low.

The last time I checked, it had only happened once.

I don't agree with this at all. I think many runners enjoy committing themselves to training for the marathon and accomplish completing one.

You weirdos do realize people ran marathons before social media was even a thing, right?

Yes, marathons existed long before social media. The definition of integrity is what you do when no one is watching. Words for life.

It is a good expression. Unfortunately, it's also commonly used by people who don't live it.

This recent trend of saying people only run marathons to tell people about it is kind of ridiculous. Many people are extroverts and tell other people about their lives and are in turn interested in their lives. Nothing wrong with that.

In addition, for adults with families and/or jobs, training for a marathon takes a very high chunk of their free time and thoughts and emotional investment. Someone who runs a marathon simply mostly has that to talk about. Over the last 16 weeks the marathon has pushed other things out.

One last thought, people who run marathons are probably less likely to spend their days posting inane political nonsense on social media. Those who pick on marathon runners are more likely to be political hobbyists.

Correction: Relatively few Americans are sincerely interested in other people's lives. Unless they're famous...and they never have or will meet them. In fact, generally, they've not even very good at faking sincere interest. Hence the HIGH number of one-way conversations - with both extroverts AND non-extroverts.

Nothing against who post every training session every race result . Or about people that everything on their social media is about running. And of course I m not talking about elite or sub elite . Personally I never liked the idea to post anything and even more about running. I used to post on Strava but now also that one in on private. With time I have learned that for me running is a very delicate balance between stay healthy or in good shape and be injured. And all this social media to me add stress to the stress. If I do some training or a good race or a good result I just tell to my close training partners maybe to my coach if he's following me during the preparation and that's all. I just run for myself. Run is part of my every day life and is so personal that I find useless to share with people that I barely know . Or those running influencer that always has smile on their face , always happy , with their video speed up to make them looks like they are faster then what actually are of course everything effortless. Well running is not only this. Yes sure to run makes us happy and feel good thanks to endorphine and good training. But we all know that as the Kenyans use to say , no matter how fast you are there will be a time during a race that you will face the pain and you got to learn how to deal with it. It can be at 7 km in a 10k race , at the 15km in a HM or at 30 km in a marathon but sure will come that moment. And no social media can help you in that moment