The half-marathon achieves its personal best

[Velar Fricative]

online.wsj.com/articles/the-half-marathon-achieves-its-personal-best-1413825711?google_editors_picks=true

The business plan wasn't promising: Take a storied running event, chop it off in the middle and give it a name like a second-rate movie sequel. Yet the half-marathon has become a star attraction on its own, racing past its older sibling to become the darling of amateur distance runners.



Nearly two million people finished a half-marathon in the U.S. last year, an all-time high and a fourfold increase from 2000, according to industry tracker Running USA. The 13.1-mile half-marathon now counts more than three times as many annual finishers as the 26.2-mile marathon.



Fans of the half-marathon say it is long enough to present a challenge but short enough that novices can train for it in a few months. It’s also gentler on the body. With proper training, half-marathoners can avoid some overuse injuries common to marathoners, such as stress fractures and joint irritation, says Kelley Anderson, primary-care sports medicine physician at the UPMC Center for Sports Medicine in Pittsburgh.



“I can walk after a half-marathon,” says Teri Romero, a 44-year-old mother of three in Fremont, Calif.


Mrs. Romero started running as therapy for arthritis. When she ran her first half-marathon in January, the Tinker Bell race at Disneyland in California, she was so overcome with the emotion of the achievement that she says she cried during much of the race. She has since run several more half-marathons, including the Nike Women’s Half-Marathon last Sunday in San Francisco.



About 61% of all half-marathon finishers last year were female, an all-time high for any standard-distance race. Women are more likely than men to form training groups—one nationwide running club is called Moms Run This Town—and use social media to talk about races, says Ryan Lamppa, a former Running USA researcher who now runs a media and event marketing company.


The most popular half-marathons sell out in hours or accept entries on a lottery system. Christine Ibanez, a finance director for a Santa Clara, Calif., software firm, says securing a spot in Nike’s San Francisco race is “like getting into a competitive college now. It’s a joyous moment when you get that email saying, ‘You have been accepted.’ ” Nike doesn't disclose its acceptance rate, but capped registrations at 26,387 for the most recent edition of the race, the largest of its kind in the nation for women.



Whereas marathons feature professional runners and Type-A’s fixating on their digital watches, half-marathons are largely for amateurs. The half-marathon isn't an Olympic event, which means less athlete sponsorship and prize money and more races with 11-minute milers running in costume.


Fast, slender men led the first American running boom, in the 1970s and ’80s. But women of all shapes and sizes are leading the second running boom. Mr. Lamppa, the running analyst, traces its start to Oprah Winfrey ’s running the 1994 Marine Corps Marathon. Ms. Winfrey’s 4½-hour finish persuaded millions that they, too, could run long distances.



The Divas half-marathon series for women awards a glass of bubbly and a rose to its finishers. Dan Cruz, a spokesman for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series, which organizes half and full marathons, says that two-thirds of its half-marathon registrants are women. “We see a lot of the girls’ weekend getaways,” he says.



Half-marathon directors increasingly are staging races in exotic locations or building festivals around the events to attract out-of-towners. Race directors say the half-marathon is the shortest-distance race for which people will travel from out of state in significant numbers.



The Napa to Sonoma Half Marathon terminates at a wine and music festival, and includes an aid station with tiny cups of wine among the water stations along the course. The race’s operator, Destination Races, stages seven wine-country half-marathons in the U.S. and Canada and will add two more next year, says its founder and president, Matt Dockstader.



“This niche market was a lot larger than I thought,” he says.



There is no question that “the half-marathon distance in America has turned into the juggernaut of road races,” says Mr. Cruz of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon Series.



The group launched a half-marathon in Virginia Beach, Va., in 2001, amid skepticism that the event could thrive without the allure of a marathon. The race sold out its 15,000 slots three months in advance, Mr. Cruz says. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Series, which launched in 1998, now organizes more half-marathons (27) than marathons (16).



Faron Kelley, director of marketing strategy for the popular Run Disney race series, says part of the attraction of the half-marathon is its association with the marathon, a grueling, bucket-list distance.



The 5K, with its giant corporate and charity races, leads all standard distances with 8.3 million finishers in the U.S. But the half-marathon is more popular even than the 10K, which is about half as long as the half. “Maybe if we called 10Ks ‘quarter-marathons,’ they would be more popular,” Mr. Kelly says.



Emelia Cellura, a 33-year-old Los Gatos, Calif., resident who blogs about running on her website, Half Crazy Mama, says she prefers half-marathons because “just when you’re starting to get bored, you’re done.”



Races at the 13.1-mile distance have been held at least since the 1970s, but they weren’t called a half-marathon until the early 1980s, says Bart Yasso, a longtime employee of Runner’s World magazine now acting as the publication’s chief running officer.



Lauren Fleshman, a two-time U.S. champion in the 5,000 meters, is among the runners who think the event deserves its own identity. “Branding 101: I don’t think naming anything half of anything else is a great way to optimize its ultimate value,” she says.



Four years ago on a Runner’s World message board, a commenter suggested a new name for the half-marathon: Pikermi, the Greek town that sits about halfway between Marathon and Athens. Steve Wood, a longtime runner in Eau Claire, Wis., took up the cause, tongue-in-cheek, and began selling “Team Pikermi” T-shirts.



The Pikermi name hasn’t caught on, and Mr. Wood has since abandoned his Team Pikermi website for a new love: trail-running.



The number of half-marathon finishers grew 6% last year, still strong but slower than that of a few years ago. Bad weather hurt participation. Plus, half-marathons face competition from newer mud runs and obstacle-course races. But Mr. Yasso says that those events will feed the half-marathon, which gives runners a chance at a personal-best time because it is standardized.



Despite extensive research, Mr. Yasso isn’t sure who coined the term half-marathon, but says he would love to find out. “That person had no clue how popular the half-marathon would become.”

[oreos]

I love half-marathons. To echo a comment in the article, it feels like a challenge, but the training doesn't eat up your life and wreck your body as a full marathon does.

I've done two fulls. I'm glad I "accomplished" the distance, but I find I much prefer focusing on the shorter distances now.

[Velar Fricative]

Oct 20, 2014 15:44:01 GMT -5 oreos said:

I love half-marathons. To echo a comment in the article, it feels like a challenge, but the training doesn't eat up your life and wreck your body as a full marathon does.

I've done two fulls. I'm glad I "accomplished" the distance, but I find I much prefer focusing on the shorter distances now.

I can see this happening myself. I'm already entered in a full next November (a do-over from when my full was canceled two years ago, though I still ran the distance on my own that day anyway), and I wonder if once I've ran 26.2 miles in an actual race next year, I'll decide to stick with half-marathons (and shorter races) instead. Marathon training was intense but I really loved it, so maybe not unless next year's training isn't as fun (and it probably won't be for a variety of reasons).

But I'm still fascinated by the growth in participation in half-marathons. I'll be interested in seeing numbers in the coming years too.

[secretlyevil]

This is spot on. I have no desire to do a full. Halfs fit into my life. Maybe if I was a speedy like taratru, I'd be singing a different tune.

It goes along the article posted the other day. Half marathons still are extreme. People do them all the time with little to know training and they hurt themselves. Then they seem perplexed.

[moreace01]

I like half marathons best. It was my first race ever - never bothered with a 5k. And I'll be honest, I'm not getting up early and paying money to run... well..really anything less than a half unless it is a really special race (can't imagine what that would be at this point).

I ran one full. I'll do it again. I had a blast but it is such a major time commitment (and I still haven't lost the marathon weight - lol) and is so rough on your body that its something I have to be really in the right mindset to want to train for again. A half...I could conceivably do on any given weekend without much of a problem anymore (and lest you think I'm some uber athlete - I'm slower than dirt. I just do a weekly long run between 8-12 miles every week to keep in half marathon shape).

ETA: Another thing about training for a full is - its not only the time you take to train, but the time to recover. A 16+ mile run wipes me out for the rest of the day so I just sit on my couch half awake and half asleep (although who am I kidding - that happens sometimes after an 8 mile run). It ends up making me feel like I don't have a weekend. 

[eponinepontmercy]

I liked running the half. I don't want to take the time to run 20 miles on a weekend, mostly because I'm really fucking slow and I'd need to take a break to eat lunch at some point during that run, so a full isn't in the cards for me. It was hard, but I could do it again.

Well, maybe. Ask me again if my toenail ever recovers.

[secretlyevil]

Oct 20, 2014 15:59:12 GMT -5 eponinepontmercy said:

I liked running the half. I don't want to take the time to run 20 miles on a weekend, mostly because I'm really fucking slow and I'd need to take a break to eat lunch at some point during that run, so a full isn't in the cards for me. It was hard, but I could do it again.

Well, maybe. Ask me again if my toenail ever recovers.

your toe nail will grow back.

[pixy0stix]

I really want to do this one day.