Running Experience Survey
Respondent update
It’s been just over a month since I launched the Running Experience Survey, and data collection has been going well.
Thanks to help from members of running clubs and communities up and down the land – as well as online – I’ve received well over 1,900 responses so far. It’s a really rich and interesting dataset, and I’m looking forward to starting the analysis in earnest very soon.
On this page I’ve compiled a few charts that provide a bit of detail on the backgrounds and running characteristics of the respondents I’ve heard from so far.
The full report will follow later in the summer.
Respondent demographics
Gender
As is often the case with surveys, women were more likely to respond than men.
Age
Young people are another difficult group to get to respond to surveys, as clearly illustrated by the spread of responses shown below.
Location
This map shows where respondents live, with darker greens showing areas with a higher number of responses. Apologies to respondents from Northern Ireland not included here!
The dots indicate the locations of major town/cities, with size reflecting population.
Key running characteristics
Running ability (self-reported)
How survey participants rated themselves in terms of running ability when compared to other people of their age and gender.
Running club membership
Percentages of respondents who are members of groups/clubs (not all respondents were asked this question, some ticked more than one type of membership).
As you can see, the sample is heavily skewed towards club members. My main priority for the last few weeks of the data collection period is to increase the number of informal runners included.
Respondents' running identities
Just for fun, here’s a Ven diagram showing the overlaps between people who identify quite or very strongly with one or more of three labels: Jogger, runner and athlete.
So, for instance, 11% identified as joggers and runners, but not as athletes; and 2% only identified as athletes, and not as either a runner or jogger. 1% identified with all three!
This question was asked to a subset of about 500 survey participants.
Not complete the survey yet? – just click below to take part.
That’s it for now! The full report will be published in August 2025.
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