The Rise of the Amateur Athlete
In the last 10 years, one of the more interesting trends has been the rise of the amateur athlete, particularly beginning marathoners. Statistics tell us that around 299,000 runners finished marathons back in 2000 and almost twice as many (407,000) finished in 2007. Not everyone is thrilled with the trend, but runners all over the world are taking advantage of some of the resources we've created in the past decade to make it easier:
Online Marathon Training Programs mean we don't need coaches or running clubs to train.
Finding marathons is easier than ever and there are new ones popping up every year.
Marathon training has evolved into shorter training runs, which means you don't have to quit your job to run a marathon.
