Why everyone is running all of a sudden

Peloton — the spin bike wonderchild of the pandemic — hasn’t done so well the last couple years. So on Tuesday, it announced it’s going “all in” on a new treadmill line, jumping on a boom in the popularity of running.

Noah Chutz, a physician assistant in Pinedale, Wyoming, went on his most recent run in the mountains of western Wyoming.

“Which was about a 20-mile round trip,” he said.

Chutz has been getting more serious about running in the past three years. He even started a running club this summer in his rural town of 2,000.

“We just don't have a huge population center,” he said, “and it's such a fun way to gather.”

Clubs like his are popping up all over the U.S.

“Gen Zers are all over that,” said Jan Seeley, race director for the Illinois Marathon. “These social running clubs are kind of an alternative to dating apps.”

Running clubs — and runners in general — are traveling to more 10Ks and half marathons.

“All races, including ours, are selling out sooner and with higher numbers,” Seeley said.

This year, 1.1 million runners entered a lottery to run the London Marathon. Only 59,000 got in.

“This is what you would call the third running boom,” Seeley said.

The first was in the 1980s. Then, around the financial crisis. And now post-pandemic.

“Running does boom in periods of instability,” said Lee Glandorf, writer of the sports fashion Substack called The Sweat Lookbook.

“You see like marked improvement day in day out if you commit to a running practice, and I think that's very appealing to people right now,” said Glandorf. “There's not many things you can say in this world that do that."

Glandorf said that this generation of runners is different. Instead of bright nylon track shorts, companies are making sleek streetwear.

“All-black with a bandana and bug-eyed Oakley sunglasses,” she said. “And then very chunky footwear.”

Like the legendary Olympic runner Florence Griffith Joyner said, “Dress good to look good. Look good to feel good. And feel good to run fast.”

Correction (Sept. 24, 2026): A previous version of this story misstated the name of Glandorf’s Substack.