‘A sea of positivity’: older women boost London Marathon numbers

As 50,000 London Marathon runners take to the capital’s streets on Sunday, spectators may notice a few more grey (or purple, see above) hairs poking out from under the caps and beanies.

Analysis has revealed the number of female runners aged 50 and older finishing the race has increased by 65% since 2018. It comes alongside a 91% increase in the number of female runners aged 60 to 69 registering to run, a demographic change organisers say will be hard to ignore.

“Older female runners aged 50 to 70 are the fastest growing group we have,” said Hugh Brasher, the event director.

“The demographic change is really noticeable and has created an atmosphere that’s just a sea of positivity, where finishing times are only one of many motivations for taking part.”

In 2020, when the race was run virtually because of the Covid pandemic, the number of men and women running were equal for the first time. Brasher suggested many of those women may have been older runners who felt able to give the marathon a go for the first time when it was held out of the spotlight. And now they are attending the real thing.

Kate Neale, 60, will be running the marathon on Sunday – followed by the Dublin marathon a month later. She did her first 26.2-mile race in Brighton in 2018 and completed Belfast the following year.

“I started running when I was 47 and needed some headspace that was cheap and quick,” she said. “I was quite unusual then but I’m not now: in my local running club, the majority of beginners are women, and more of them are in their 40s and older.”

Brasher puts the increase in older female runners down to a combination of factors, the earliest being Paula Radcliffe’s 2003 historic completion of the London Marathon.

“Many women who are