From TikTok to the track: gen Z are driving running’s third great boom
At the heart of running’s unprecedented explosion in popularity is the digitally native generation making the sport fashionable, communal and more diverse than ever
Hear that sound? It is the fingertaps of gen Z scrolling through Instagram reels and TikToks. The pings of card readers as more stylish gear leaves the shelves. The drumbeat of cushioned soles on pavements up and down the country. But, most of all, it is the noise of the jaws of the smartest people in sport crashing to the floor. Because, suddenly and entirely unexpectedly, we are in the third great running boom, one that almost nobody saw coming and powered almost entirely by gen Z, particularly women.
“You go back to the first boom in the 1970s and 80s and there was no real diversity: it was all thin, skinny, white guys in very tight shorts,” says Hugh Brasher, the event director of the London Marathon. The second boom? That, he says, came after Paula Radcliffe broke the world marathon record in 2003, leading to a big jump in women taking up running, before parkrun grew the numbers again.