Fargo Marathon: 20,000 Runners Registered

San Francisco (GaeaTimes.com) More than 20,000 runners have registered in Fargo Marathon making it one of the fastest growing marathons in the United States. Fargo Marathon is only in its 6th year and the number of runners clearly indicates the popularity it has acquired. The inaugural Fargo Marathon had only 2,271 participants. Thanks to its aggressive marketing campaign and great word of mouth. The popularity of Fargo Marathon is growing above expectation levels.

The annual marathon is sponsored by Scheels All Sports. Fargo marathon Director Mark Knutson said that the 20K participant number is a testament to the community and local and regional athletes. Earlier this year, Runner’s World Magazine ranked Fargo marathon eighth among the 10 best marathon in the nation and it was given the title of Best Value Marathon. Knutson said that 2,200 runners have registered for the full marathon, 6,500 registered for the half marathon and 1,600 for team relays. Fargo first hosted the ‘Scheels All Sports Run for the Children Half Marathon’ in May 2002. It had 300 runners and was considered a huge race.

Here is some statistics for the Fargo Marathon, collected from Wikipedia.
About 15,000 runners participated in 2009 including 5,000 for the fun run, walk. 1,272 runners finished in 2009. Interestingly, 1,427 runners finished in 2008, more than the number in 2009, though the number of runners were about 13,000, lesser than 2009. In 2007, 1,196 participants finished among 8,100 participants. 982 finished among 6,000 runners in 2006 and 707 runners finished in 2005. In 2009, Pete Gilman won the race with time of 2:24:33. In the women’s section Nicole Cueno won with time of 2:53:15.