Our passion at MarathonGuide.com is finding and providing information about marathoning and marathoners. Here we present our second annual definitive summary of the USA marathoning environment: the number of finishers, the biggest marathons, growth in running. We don’t know any other source for this comprehensive information, so here it is, our summary of marathoning in the USA in 2003.

2003 Total USA Marathon Finishers
Total finishers increases by 3.2%, women continue to close gender gap.
In 2003, there was a 3.4% increase in the number of marathon finishers from 2002, with a total of nearly 334,000 people completing a marathon in the USA in 2003 – up from approximately 323,000 in 2002. The number of male finishers increased by 2.3%, while the number of female finishers grew by 4.8%, narrowing the gender gap to 60.9% men and 39.1% women. In total, 270 marathons took place in the USA in 2003.

2003 Largest USA Marathons
New York maintained its status as the largest U.S. marathon, holding off a continued challenge from the Chicago Marathon to try to take that title. In general, most of the largest marathons in this country maintained their size-ranked position with just a little reshuffling of those rankings. The country’s 25 largest marathons (shown below), accounted for more than 70% of total marathon finishers in the USA.

Overall Demographics

	Percent	Age	Time
Men	60.9%	40.2	4:27:27
Women	39.1%	35.7	5:04:35
All Runners	100%	38.5	4:41:59

Fastest Age Groups
The fastest times, on average, run by men in 2003 came from runners between the ages of 20-24, with a mean finishing time of 4:17:19, just beating out the men 35-39 (4:19:19)
The women’s fastest times were also posted by 20-24-year olds, who averaged a time of 4:49:33 for their finishes.

Largest Age Groups
Men aged 40-44 represented the largest single age group for marathon runners in 2003, more than 10% of all marathoners and nearly 17% of male marathoners.
For women, the largest group was females between ages 25-29 representing 7.7% of all marathon finishers, and nearly 20% of all female finishers..

Name	2003 Finishers	2003 Rank	2002 Rank	Growth Since 2002
New York City Marathon	34,729	1	1	9.13%
Chicago Marathon	32,395	2	2	4.19%
Honolulu Marathon	22,136	3	3	-16.09%
Boston Marathon	17,046	4	6	18.38%
City of Los Angeles Marathon (L.A. Marathon)	16,788	5	4	-9.49%
Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon	16,185	6	5	4.91%
Marine Corps Marathon	15,957	7	7	13.28%
Disney World Marathon	9,404	8	8	18.29%
Twin Cities Marathon	7,084	9	11	8.45%
Portland Marathon	7,031	10	9	-0.85%
Grandma’s Marathon	6,868	11	10	0.47%
Motorola Austin Marathon	5,360	12	13	21.16%
Philadelphia Marathon	5,354	13	12	18.06%
Houston Marathon	4,699	14	14	6.94%
St. George Marathon	4,433	15	16	4.90%
Columbus Marathon	3,993	16	20	22.56%
Cincinnati Flying Pig Marathon	3,825	17	17	-1.54%
Dallas White Rock Marathon	3,370	18	19	0.36%
Country Music Marathon	3,125	19	18	-9.81%
California International Marathon	2,930	20	21	12.22%
Big Sur International Marathon	2,820	21	24	20.36%
Richmond Marathon	2,780	22	22	8.55%
Detroit Free Press International Marathon	2,778	23	26	18.97%
Las Vegas International Marathon	2,533	24	25	8.20%
Pittsburgh Marathon	2,208	25	23	-13.65%

2003 Largest Inaugural USA Marathons
There were nearly 20 inaugural marathons in 2003, most of them small affairs. Of the first-time events, only one, The Miami Tropical Marathon (1,455 finishers in the marathon), broke the bar of 1,000 finishers in its inaugural race. Next on the size list of new marathons were the Akron Marathon (855 finishers) and the Little Rock Marathon (842 finishers).