Time for an update of the latest running demographics in England, drawing on insights gleaned from Sport England’s massive Active Lives Survey. I’ve broken runners down into five categories, which helps to illustrate the social diversity within the sport. Overall participation These are the figures for participation (any time in the last 12 months) in
The average age of runners varies significantly between different forms of the sport, as I explore here. But what about if we try to get behind these simple averages and look at variations in participation profiles by age? The below chart draws on data from Sport England’s Active Lives Survey (data collected in 2023). It
I read an interesting article on Medium the other day, in which Paul Flannery, an American sports journalist, talks about why he and countless others have turned to running as a way of coping with a ‘mid-life crisis’. Flannery suggests displays of extreme athleticism in particular seem to have special appeal to those of us facing up
Overall figures In this post I’m going to use data from the Big Running Survey, conducted as part of my PhD a couple of years ago, to explore variations in the motivations of different types of runner based on gender and age. I’m not going to try to explain the patterns – that will be
This article presents a collection of demographic statistics about running in the UK and beyond. The data is drawn primarily from Sport England’s Active People Survey and its unrivalled dataset, but also my own Big Running Survey, which provides finer detail. UK Running Demographics How many runners? The current size of the UK regular running
This is part 2 of my series on simple running statistics (part 1 here). The data used on this page is primarily drawn from my own Big Running Survey from 2017. Here we focus on exploring the demographic and psychographic features of different ways of participating in running. Section 1 – Demographics within runningGender –
Below is a list of key statistics about running derived from a number of sources, but mainly the Big Running Survey, which canvased the opinions of almost 2,700 runners on their running practices, motivations and attitudes in 2017. Follow the links on selected items for more detail. Section 1 – running demographicsParticipation rates – Social