When I started out running ultras I used to look at the runner data for races that I was signed up for. How many races they had run, number of hundreds, age, gender, length of ultra career; that sort of thing. I was curious to see what type of person signed up for these events and their general experience level. In hindsight, I was trying to see how I fit into this community. I was pretty insecure with a serious imposter syndrome going and was trying to convince myself that I belonged. Well, I haven’t checked runner demographics in recent years because whether I belong or not, I’m here to stay.
Eastern States is trying something new this year by not requiring a qualifying race to register. I thought it would be interesting to take a look at entrant data for 2025 to see if more inexperienced runners signed up. Note that all race history data was pulled from the DUV website. The first chart shows the percentage of runners who met the prior qualification standard of having finished a 50 mile race.
Here’s the standard Male/Female split. Hundreds typically have a 75/25 M/F split so this isn’t too far outside the norm.
When I was pulling data from the DUV website, I was only looking at a couple different categories: # of ultras, lifetime ultra mileage, longest ultra, ES100 finish, and date of first ultra. I wasn’t trying to do a complete deep dive of everyone’s ultra history. I felt these five things were enough to get a pretty good feel as to how “qualified” runners are to start. I’m putting qualified in quotes there because race history is only part of the equation. Ideally, we’d need to have lifetime training volume, general fitness benchmarks ( VO2 Max, 5K time), and injury status to give a true indication of whether a runner should or should not be signed up for the race.
Median = middle for those that for forgot their 6th grade math lessons. These numbers tell me we have a seasoned group of runners toeing the line this year as the typical runner has raced 8 ultras over the past 4 years and has already finished a hundred miler. For comparison, I’m at 63 ultras (7th most), 4,910 lifetime ultra miles (5th most, #787 in US), a long of 232 (10th farthest), and first ultra on 4/27/14 (31st longest tenured). It’s pretty crazy for me to now look at my stats in comparison to others considering where I started out. Well, where we all start out really. I always hoped I would last long enough to be the grizzled vet and I guess I’m finally there.
Part of me is a little surprised that the starting field has this many (49) prior year finishers. I don’t know why this should be a shock though. I mean, this is such an amazing race that I come back every year to experience it over and over again. Of course others would have a similar attachment to it. Frankly, I should be surprised the number this isn’t even higher. Guess I’ll chalk it up to family vacation conflicts.