What were the record-breaking numbers at the 2024 Chicago Marathon?

50,0000

Chicago 2024 went over the 50,000 finisher mark. This makes 3 years in a row of increasing numbers. There are a number of factors leading into this.

COVID - the pandemic did two things. stopped all majore events and pushed people outside in the fresh air to run. Quite a few people around the world discovered the feeness of running during the pandemic.

Social Media Influencers - out of COVID also came an influx of social media influencers. They are not fully hitting their stride. Look at the top 10 list of runners followed in Chicago through the TCS app and you'll find Matt Fox and Eric Floberg to runners running for a personal best. On any Saturday before the marathon major you will probably run into or join the Believe in the Run crew. Their shake out runs are in the high hundreds or even creeping into the 1000's of participants. Bottom line they are making running cool again.

2:09:56

Ruth Chepngetich smashed the women's world record in Chicago. She's the first woman under 2:10. Like Kipchoge and Kiptum on the men's side the women are showing us there is no limit. The conditions were perfect, the pacemakers were perfect and somehow Ruth was perfect on the day of the race. More persepective, 2nd place was 7:30 behind Ruth. That mean's 2nd pace was roughly 1.5 miles behind the winner.

1,010

Late Sunday I was on the headed toward the elevator. I had dinner my first thing to eat since 7:30am and I was a bit hangry (Hungry-angry). An older getlemen asked me if I had run. I said "Unfortunately I had to work at the race all day. I'd rather run" He said "I'm getting to old for this. This was my 1,010th marathon." I digested that for a minute. Thats 26,462 miles of running with a bib on front. This guy has run through at least 3 different running booms. He was part of the first one, ran through the mid 90's boom thanks to the Oprah generated boom where women began running in a big way. Finally he's part of the COVID boom discussed above. And think about that for a second. He had to take at least 2 years off of running marathons for the pandemic. He wore the Asics Nimbus 25 for number 1,010.