Americans flocking to marathons

BOSTON — For centuries, the marathon was seen as the ultimate footrace, a journey so long that few mortals were thought capable of enduring it. But more and more these days, marathons are for the masses.

Even Boston's Marathon — the world's most exclusive 26.2-mile race, with its famously tough qualifying times — is bowing to pressure from the running rabble.

For the 107th race, which takes place today, Boston officials loosened time requirements for older age groups and added 5,000 slots. The stretch for inclusion reflects wider trends in the marathon world, which more average runners are fueling.

Take the blonde-coiffed ladies of the Generation Gap, a Salt Lake City running club. With primped hair and jewelry, they look more styled for a country club than a marathon. But these women are serious about running. They meet six days a week at 5:30 a.m. — rain, sun, sleet or snow. Six of their 25 members qualified for Boston this year, including spry septuagenarian Judy Bullough.

She started running two or three miles at a time to relieve stress from her nursing job — and is now on her 31st marathon. "It just keeps you happy," she says.

Another member, Ida Lee Reaveley, would have missed qualifying for Boston by six minutes if it weren't for the less-stringent time requirements. Now she's able to join her friends.

Or there's Wade Anderson, who's running his first Boston race today. It's his second marathon. And he didn't even plan to be here.

Anderson, a forestry engineer from Vancouver, B.C., aims to do his first Ironman triathalon this year. "This is really a training run," he says, laughing at the irony that he's treating the world's greatest marathon as a warm-up lap.

But Andersen is onto something: The days of Boston being the Mt. Everest of endurance races are over. "Because of these extreme events, there are just some taller mountains out there now," says Ryan Lamppa, a researcher at USA Track & Field's information center.

More people are traversing 150 miles of 120-degree Sahara Desert in the six-day Marathon des Sables or they're teaming up to river-raft, horseback-ride, mountain-climb or just crawl 300 miles in the Eco-Challenge. As these extreme events get more TV coverage, more people see a 26.2-mile road race as easy.

Plus, many marathoners are motivated by doing good. There's a mini-industry of charity groups that train beginners for road races. Today in Boston, charity runners will raise $7 million.

A record one-third of this year's Boston runners are women. Overall, 40 percent of U.S. marathon finishers last year were women, up from 10.5 percent in 1980, according to USA Track & Field.

Other statistics: In 1976, 25,000 people finished marathons in the United States. By 1990, that number had grown tenfold, to 260,000. By 2002, it was close to half a million.

As the jogging masses have joined the fleet-footed elite, average U.S. finishing times have grown dramatically. Between 1980 and 2002 median times went from 3:32 to 4:20 for men and from 4:03 to 4:56 for women.

"The sport has become mainstream," says Lamppa. "Virtually any able-bodied person can run a marathon."