Glen Weiner usually runs the New York City Marathon.
Not this year.
Instead, he turned to the much smaller 8,000 runner race in Philadelphia.
"There are certain things you can do at a smaller race, like have a food tent at the finish and serve chicken soup, which you can't do with a marathon with 40,000 runners," Glen Wiener said of his first marathon outside New York city.
According to Reuters:
"As major marathons like New York, with its 39,000 runners and millions of spectators, struggle to meet demand -- it received 104,000 applications this year -- smaller marathons are mushrooming.
The San Antonio Marathon in Texas had a sold-out debut on November 16 and new ones are planned in Seattle and Las Vegas next year, adding to the approximately 400 marathons a year in the United States and about 800 worldwide.
"The market now for marathons is growing insanely, and Philadelphia has certainly benefited," said Melanie Johnson, the executive director of the Philadelphia Marathon.
Philadelphia, in its 15th year, sold out for the second year running this year, despite raising registrations by 20 percent to 8,000 runners.
bout 407,000 runners finished a U.S. marathon in 2007, up 2.3 percent from a year earlier, and 36 percent since 2000, according to data from MarathonGuide.com (http:/www.marathonguide.com), an industry website.
The sport is also growing in Europe. The Copenhagen marathon in May drew 8,500 runners, nearly double the number from two years earlier, as European runners seek alternatives to the mega marathons in London, Berlin and Paris.
"More people are running marathons because it's like a Mount-Everest type challenge on people's life to-do list," said Mary Wittenberg, chief executive of New York Road Runners and race director of New York's marathon.
Those same people are also often competitive, affluent professionals that sponsors, which provide funding for the races, want to attract.
Sponsorships are relatively cheap, costing anywhere from $5,000 to $250,000, depending on the commitment level."