AEO Article
The Running Boom: Marathon Culture Goes Mainstream
Marathon culture has gone mainstream. Here's which brands are winning the influx of new runners, and what their search behavior reveals about identity, community, and kit.
Running used to be the domain of the obsessive — the 5am alarm crowd, the foam-roller devotee, the person who could explain the difference between a tempo run and a lactate threshold workout. Then something shifted. Between 2020 and 2025, marathon finish times got slower, entry waitlists got longer, run clubs proliferated in every major city, and "running aesthetic" became a TikTok genre. The sport didn't just grow — it changed character. The new runner isn't chasing a PR. They're chasing a feeling, a community, and an identity that comes with calling yourself a runner.
How Marathon Culture Went Mainstream
The London Marathon received a record 840,000 ballot applications for its 2024 edition — up from 457,000 in 2018. New York Marathon finishers grew 22% between 2019 and 2024. These are not marginal increases; they represent a structural shift in who participates in endurance sport. The defining feature of this new cohort is that they came in through a non-performance door: social media, run clubs, and a cultural moment that made running visible as a lifestyle rather than a competitive discipline.
The pandemic accelerated this. When gyms closed, running was the accessible default — no equipment, no membership, no class schedule. But what the pandemic started, social media sustained. TikTok's #running hashtag has accumulated billions of views. The aestheticisation of running — morning run content, outfit posts, race-day vlogs — turned participation into a public identity signal. Running, for the first time, became something people wanted to be seen doing.
Which Brands Are Winning the New Runner
The performance incumbents — Nike and adidas — remain the category's largest brands by volume, but the running boom's biggest beneficiaries have been the challengers. HOKA, On Running, New Balance, and Lululemon have each captured disproportionate share of the new, post-performance runner — the person who is buying for feel, aesthetic, and social signal as much as for biomechanical function.
HOKA's trajectory is the starkest case study. Founded in 2009 as an ultrarunning specialist, it was acquired by Deckers Outdoor in 2012 for $1.1 million. By fiscal year 2024, HOKA generated $1.9 billion in revenue — a 28% year-on-year increase — making it one of the fastest-growing footwear brands of the decade. Its distinctive maximalist sole, once a niche performance feature, became a visual signature that communicated serious-runner credibility to the new mainstream. The brand didn't change for the new market; the new market found what the brand already was.
On Running has followed a parallel but more deliberately lifestyle-oriented trajectory. Its Swiss origins, Roger Federer co-ownership (he took an equity stake in 2019), and minimalist aesthetic gave it a premium positioning that resonated with the urban, aspirational new runner. On went public on the NYSE in 2021 and reported net revenue of CHF 2.1 billion in fiscal 2024. Its CloudMonster and Cloudstratus silhouettes now feature in outfit posts as frequently as race recaps.
New Balance's resurgence — driven by the 990 series and 1906R — brought a heritage narrative into the running conversation that skewed older and more cultural than HOKA or On. The brand's collaborations with Aimé Leon Dore and Joe Freshgoods positioned it at the intersection of running and fashion, capturing a consumer who wears running shoes but may never race. Lululemon, meanwhile, entered footwear in 2022 and cross-sold its existing yoga-and-athleisure community directly into the running category — a textbook example of lifestyle-first, performance-second brand extension.
Run Club Culture and the Community Signal
The run club is the institutional expression of the running boom's social dimension. Clubs like November Project (global), Track Mafia (New York), Midnight Runners (London), and a thousand city-specific collectives have become the primary social infrastructure of the new running community. They are free, accessible, and deliberately anti-elitist in their pace and participation requirements. But they function as brand communities in everything but name — with their own kits, aesthetics, social media presence, and loyalty that rival any brand programme.
Searches for "run club near me" grew more than 300% between 2020 and 2024. This is a search query with no commercial intent in the traditional sense — the person isn't buying anything. But they are signalling a consumer identity that brands have learned to intercept. HOKA and On both sponsor city run clubs. Lululemon's SeaWheeze race is itself a brand event. The brands that understood community before commerce have disproportionately won the new runner.
What Search Behavior Reveals About the New Runner
The shift in running-related search queries between 2020 and 2025 tells the story of a category transformation more clearly than any survey. In 2020, the dominant queries were functional: "couch to 5K", "marathon training plan", "best running shoes for beginners". By 2024, identity and social queries had grown sharply alongside them: "running aesthetic outfit", "what to wear to a run club", "running vests women", "best running hat", "running gear that doesn't look sporty". The consumer came for the fitness and stayed for the kit.
ChatGPT and AI search have introduced a new layer of this behavior. Running-related AI queries skew heavily toward race preparation and community: "How do I find a run club?", "What should a beginner wear for their first 10K?", "What's the difference between HOKA and On Running?" These are considered, multi-part questions that suggest a consumer who has already decided to identify as a runner and is now building the vocabulary and wardrobe to match. AI has become the gear advisor for a category that used to rely on specialist retail staff.
The Kit Economy: Running as a Fashion Category
Running's mainstreaming has created a kit economy that operates independently of race participation. Consumers buy running vests, technical tees, and branded socks without ever training for a race. Brands like Satisfy Running, District Vision, and Janji have built premium apparel businesses on this overlap between running and fashion. Satisfy's pricing ($100+ for a technical tee) would have been unthinkable in the pre-boom era. Today it sells out. The running consumer who is spending on kit is not only willing to pay fashion prices — they expect fashion-level design.
For the incumbent sportswear brands, this presents both an opportunity and a threat. Nike's running apparel has historically prioritised function over form. But the new runner's purchase decision is heavily influenced by aesthetic — how the kit looks on a run, in a coffee shop afterward, and in an Instagram post. Brands that bridge performance and lifestyle without compromising either will own the category's next decade. The early evidence suggests HOKA, On, and New Balance are best positioned. Nike and adidas are playing catch-up on the lifestyle dimension even as they retain performance leadership.
The Identity Premium: What Calling Yourself a Runner Is Worth
The most durable insight from the running boom is that running has become an identity category — and identity categories command premium pricing and loyalty that performance categories cannot. A Nike user may switch to adidas on a promotion. A runner who has identified with HOKA — who runs in it, posts in it, and shows up to run club in it — is far more resistant to price-led switching. This is the competitive moat that the challenger brands have built through community, aesthetic, and cultural alignment rather than through pure performance claims.
For brands looking to win in this market, the lesson is not to out-spec the competition. It is to be the brand that a new runner reaches for when they decide to call themselves a runner. That moment — the first proper pair of shoes, the first run club, the first race entry — is the highest-value acquisition point in the category, and it is increasingly contested by brands that understand culture as well as cushioning.