128: Are Too Many People Running Marathons?
The Running Channel Podcast
The Running Channel
4.8 • 591 Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
*Vote for us (your favourite podcast) in this year’s British Podcast Awards! Just type in "The Running Channel" when you vote. Voting closes on the 8th September. https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/voting*
Running a marathon has long been considered the holy grail of distance running. A monumental challenge that people take on for all sorts of reasons, from getting fitter and pushing personal limits to raising money for charity.
Today, participation is at an all-time high, with some of the world’s biggest marathons seeing record-breaking numbers of ballot entries. So what’s behind this surge? Why are so many people choosing to run marathons, and how is this boom shaping the broader running world?
In this episode, Andy, Rick, and Sarah dive into a lively debate: has marathon running become too popular and are too many people running them?
The Running Channel Podcast tackles one big topic each episode, amongst helpful tips and light-hearted chat on the latest news in the running world. Hosted by Sarah Hartley (amateur runner) and Andy Baddeley (former pro runner) alongside Rick Kelsey (recovering runner), the TRC Podcast is friendly, jargon-free, and the perfect accompaniment to your runs.
Join The Running Channel Club for exclusive additional podcast episodes, bite-sized courses, live Q&As and so much more! Head to club.therunningchannel.com
For all enquiries contact podcast@therunningchannel.com .
If you liked this, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And leave us a 5* review and rating, it really helps us get discovered.
We're on YouTube too, so check us out there: www.youtube.com/runningchannel .
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | This episode is sponsored by runner who have added B races to their training program. |
| 0:04.1 | So not only can you train towards your end goal race, you can also add in a B race to help |
| 0:08.5 | you along the way. |
| 0:09.3 | A lot of people, me included, might want to run a half marathon, a month out from their A goal, |
| 0:13.8 | which could be a marathon, or someone might run to a 10k as they're planning for a half marathon |
| 0:17.4 | and so on. |
| 0:18.0 | But it can be difficult to know whether you should taper in the week leading up to that B race. Then what should you do the week after it? Then how is |
| 0:24.1 | that going to impact on the rest of your training that you're doing for that ultimate A goal? And the |
| 0:28.0 | idea here is it takes the guesswork out of that. Yeah, you don't have to do any of the hard planning. Runner you. If you want to try out runner two weeks for free, then use our code TRC. |
| 0:45.3 | Welcome to the Running Channel podcast with me, Sarah Hartley. With me, Andy Badley. And me, Rick Kelsey, are too many people running marathons? |
| 0:49.3 | Now, you know I love a debate, and I just feel like recently this has been boiling over. |
| 0:55.7 | It's almost as if you're not a runner unless you've run a marathon and I do not think that |
| 1:01.3 | is correct. |
| 1:02.3 | Oh but has running 42.2 kilometers actually become devalued or are we just in an echo chamber |
| 1:07.7 | where it seems like every single person has run a marathon. I have strong |
| 1:11.7 | opinions on this and they don't necessarily line up with Rick. I feel like it's some kind of |
| 1:16.1 | daytime TV show. Stay tuned after the break we'll be delving into more. There'll be to be a caption |
| 1:23.0 | on screen and we're going to do some kind of DNA test just to find the results. Oh, I love the daytime TV show. |
| 1:28.4 | I mean, we won't be able to take a hair sample from you. |
| 1:30.7 | Oh, savage. |
| 1:31.7 | We're also going to be covering the running news. |
| 1:34.2 | There's some very exciting running news this week and answering your questions. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Running Channel, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of The Running Channel and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.