Rising Trend: Women Who Run Half-Marathons

Most of last year's 2M finishers were females
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 11, 2014 3:24 PM CDT
Rising Trend: Women Who Run Half-Marathons
Runners start the Surf City Marathon/Half Marathon Feb. 2 in Huntington Beach, Calif.   (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Michael Goulding)

Female runners are making half-marathons the sport's most popular distance race, reports Runner's World. It takes note of new stats from Running USA showing that a record 1.95 million people finished a 13.1-mile race last year, which marks a 6% increase from the previous year and an astonishing six-fold rise since 1990. Of last year's finishers, 61% were women, up from 53% in 2004. "Runners, it seems, are divided between people committed to running for maybe 40 minutes and people ready to hoof it for more than two hours," observes Rose Eveleth at Smithsonian. "If you fall somewhere in between, well, maybe it’s about time you try for 13.1 miles. Everyone else is." (More running stories.)

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