Happy Boxing Day to all.
Toya shared an article with me this morning that caught my attention, and perhaps will catch yours as well. It came from Athletechnews.com, reporting on a surge in participation among younger athletes in Ironman triathlon—a trend that closely mirrors what we are seeing in the marathon world.

According to recent data, participation in Ironman events among athletes under 30 grew sharply in 2025. First-time participants in that age bracket have increased markedly since 2019, with full-distance races alone seeing a significant year-over-year rise. Whatever the precise percentages, the direction is unmistakable.

This is not a statistical outlier. It is an echo of the current marathon boom among younger runners. On the surface, the numbers resemble the running explosion of the 1970s. What interested me more, however, was not the growth itself, but the why behind it.

The Disappearance of the “Foot Soldier”

I received a response to my previous blog post, Remembering the Good Old Days: Happy Birthday Boston Billy, in which I reflected on the late 1970s, when Bill Rodgers was a genuine running rock star. A former Penn State walk-on offered a reply that added crucial context.

“It’s all or nothing today. There is the elite and the participants. For two years in the 1970s, I taught school full-time, went to law school five nights a week, and ran 110 miles a week. That was the best time of my life. Racing was so competitive. There are no more foot soldiers, and that is sad. Where did all the 25-minute 5-milers go?”

His observation captures something essential: the disappearance of the competitive middle class in sport. There are elites at one end and mass participation at the other, with far less space in between. It is hard not to notice how closely this mirrors the erosion of the middle class in American society more broadly.

“In the 70s, you didn’t have to be elite to be fast,” he continued. “You just wanted to get better. Today, that competitive middle has been replaced by a massive participant class.”

The Cost of “Whimsical Exploration”

Why the shift? Much of it, I believe, comes down to environment and economy.

In 2008, my parents uncovered a box of my old belongings in their attic. Inside was a tuition receipt for my final semester at Washington University in St. Louis in 1973. The total: $1,250. Today, a single semester at WashU costs roughly $34,000.

When I arrived in Boston in 1974, four of us shared a two-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot apartment in Allston. The rent was $160 a month—$40 apiece. Zillow now estimates that same address at close to $3,000.

In the 1970s, many of us had a window of financial latitude that made the whimsical exploration of running 110 miles a week possible. We were not yet crushed by the cost of existence. We could afford to direct our energy toward the endorphin promise of a hard tempo run rather than a constant, high-pressure hustle just to stay afloat.

Feeling Versus Connection

Today’s runners and triathletes are often seeking something different. Less a competitive outlet, more a decompression chamber.

Sign up for a marathon and you are committing to roughly six months of shared effort. Weekly long runs, group workouts, mutual effort. It becomes, in effect, a surrogate family—one forged by duration. In a world increasingly starved for connection, that matters.

If you were only training for a 5K, 10K, or even a half marathon, you would not require the same infrastructure or social scaffolding. Longer events demand community, and in return, they provide it.

We often credit a portion of the sport’s appeal to the “runner’s high.” There is truth there, but the science suggests that the classic endocannabinoid-driven euphoria requires sustained moderate-to-high intensity for roughly 30 to 45 minutes. Anyone who has trained seriously knows it does not appear on demand, but it arrives often enough to keep you coming back.

By contrast, spending five or six hours on a marathon course—or 12 to 15 hours in an Ironman—is a different physiological experience altogether. The reward is not primarily biochemical. It is relational.

If it is not the feeling, then what is it? It is the connection.

In an era when technology has atomized daily life—and when the echoes of COVID, remote work, and social withdrawal still linger—endurance events have quietly become modern “third places.” With alcohol consumption declining and traditional social hubs, like bars, losing their pull, these events now serve as one of the few structured, in-person communities left.

As more people—particularly young men—retreat into virtual worlds, endurance sports offer a tangible, physical counterweight to isolation.

The Long View

The foot soldiers of the 1970s were seekers of sensation: the hard-earned high, the personal reckoning of a PR. Today’s athletes are more often seekers of belonging. The inward pursuit of feeling has, for many, given way to an outward search for community.

And people are willing to pay a steep barrier-to-entry—often reaching $1,000 for a full Ironman—because the cost of isolation is higher still.

Fortunately, running, cycling, and swimming are generous enough to accommodate both impulses. Whether one is chasing a 25-minute 5-miler or a 25-person community that pulls them out of the virtual ether, endurance sport still offers a place to gather and explore life in depth.

Long live sport.