The Monday before my second New York City Marathon, I found myself at Avenue Sky Lounge at the Peak, perched on the 101st floor of 30 Hudson Yards. The occasion was the after-party for the New York premiere of Everest: The Other Side, making it an ideal room for contemplating monumental climbs and the mental weight of daunting physical endeavors. Among the guests was Rich Roll, the renowned ultra-endurance athlete and podcaster. We fell into conversation about the looming race on Sunday, and he candidly admitted he was nervous. Just a year and a half earlier, following major spinal fusion surgery, his surgeon had explicitly told him to forget about running. If a man who has built his entire life and career on going long distances felt nervous, I figured I was more than allowed to share those butterflies.
Seeking a sense of perspective, I drifted to the window to look out at the geography that was causing all this anxiety. Far to the south, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge—the iconic starting point of the marathon—gleamed as a thin strand of light against the horizon. When I turned around, I could spot the dark rectangle of Central Park, where those 26.2 miles eventually come to an end. Between those two points lay everything that makes the race legendary: Brooklyn, Queens, a corner of the Bronx, and the long, unrelenting canyon of First Avenue.
You can look at the route map forever, trying to memorize every turn and formulate a foolproof race plan—don’t bomb up or down the Verrazzano because you will pay dearly for it on the Queensboro Bridge, keep a steady and manageable cadence through Brooklyn, and give it everything you have left once you hit Central Park South. I had run this course before, and yet, standing high above the city grid, no amount of planning could completely quiet the inevitable question: What exactly did I sign up for?
Six days later, there was no longer any room for backing out. At 4:00 A.M. on Sunday, I boarded the F train to begin the pilgrimage to the start line. Because this was the morning after Halloween, I had colorful company in the subway car: a lively mix of people in full costume, including Darth Vader and Rosie the Riveter, who were just ending their long night out as I was beginning my grueling day. It was also the exact morning the clocks fell back for the end of daylight saving time, gifting the rest of the city an extra hour of sweet sleep. Nearly 60,000 marathon runners, however, did not get to sleep in.
From midtown, I caught a bus bound for Staten Island, navigating traffic along the West Side Highway—a stretch of asphalt I have run hundreds of times and the site of the vast majority of my training runs, though in hindsight, the hills of Prospect Park might have been a wiser, more rigorous choice for preparation. Looking out the bus window, the sky over Brooklyn shifted gracefully from deep purple to soft pink. Brooklyn, where nearly half of this massive race is contested, has been my home for most of my adult life. People often say the best thing about Jersey City is its sweeping view of Manhattan, but at 6:00 A.M. on race morning, the perspective reverses: the sun rises directly behind you, casting a brilliant gold light across Jersey City’s glass towers, which in turn reflect the glow back across the historic Hudson River.
That is ultimately how you measure 26.2 miles in New York City: by subway, by bus, entirely on foot, and from the panoramic view of the air. And, finally, by running every single step of the way.
This particular running of the New York City Marathon was destined to be historic no matter what transpired on the course. Exactly fifty years ago, in 1976, the race broke out of the confines of Central Park—where it had originally been run in monotonous loops—and spilled out into the streets across all five boroughs. About 2,000 adventurous souls entered that first city-wide race, and a mere 88 of them were women. Half a century later, the scale of the event is almost unfathomable: more than 61,000 athletes crossed the finish line this year, nearly 29,000 of whom were women, showcasing how profoundly the sport has evolved and expanded over the decades.
The New York City Marathon remains a unique arena where athletic achievement comes in many different sizes, and the personal stories it generates are remarkably varied and inspiring. In the elite divisions, Sweden’s Andreas Almgren captured the men’s race with a stunning time of 2:06:01, accomplishing the feat in the very first marathon of his life. In the women’s race, Kenya’s Sheila Chepkirui claimed victory for the second time in three years, while American runner Jess McClain thrilled the crowds by catching two-time champion Hellen Obiri in the final strides to secure second place—marking the first time an American woman has stood on the New York podium since 2018. In the wheelchair divisions, Marcel Hug secured his eighth title, while Catherine Debrunner dominated her field, winning by a margin of more than eight minutes.
Yet the stories unfolding farther back in the massive pack of runners were just as compelling. Rich Roll successfully made it to the starting line and, triumphantly, to the finish line as well. Now 60 years old, he had structured his training around just two five-mile run-walk sessions a week, exercising extreme caution not to aggravate his fused spine. Moreover, he did not run for personal glory; he served as a dedicated run support guide for former Army Master Sergeant Cedric King, a recipient of the Purple Heart who lost both legs above the knee to an improvised explosive device in combat. Writing later in an Instagram post, Roll reflected that the true secret to a big and meaningful life is to make it about something much larger than yourself.
British ultrarunner William Goodge also crossed the finish line in Central Park, completing an astonishing feat: his 50th marathon in 23 days, with one race completed in every single U.S. state, an epic journey that began in Honolulu on October 9. The grueling endeavor earned him a Guinness World Record and raised vital funds for Stand Up To Cancer, a cause he championed in loving memory of his late mother.
Then there is Dave Obelkevich, who at 83 years old has finished every single five-borough New York City Marathon since that inaugural race back in 1976. On Sunday, he lined up to tackle his 49th consecutive New York marathon, with his daughter running right beside him. This is also one of the rare sporting events where watching the very last finishers come in is considered a major highlight of the day. This year, the final runner home was James Thomas, a 78-year-old affectionately known to his running friends as Marty. He crossed the finish line at approximately 11:20 P.M., long after the elite champions had gone to sleep, marking his 43rd New York City Marathon since running his first back in 1980.
People frequently call marathon Sunday one of the absolute best days of the year to be in New York City, and the primary reason for this collective magic is community. You feel it in the brass bands playing along Fourth Avenue in Bay Ridge; in the initial hush followed by an eruption of noise through Williamsburg, as if the neighborhood never stopped partying from the night before; in the deafening roar of the crowds when you finally emerge from the eerie silence of the Queensboro Bridge onto First Avenue; in the uplifting strains of gospel music echoing through Harlem; and in the encouragement of total strangers who yell your name out loud precisely when you need to hear it the most.
This year, however, I would end up needing that community support far more than I had originally hoped.
My race did not go according to plan. The wheels completely came off my performance on the Queensboro Bridge, just as they do for so many runners. Even people who have never stepped foot on a marathon course in New York know its fearsome reputation for unraveling runners’ carefully laid dreams. It is an isolated, quiet stretch of the course with no crowds and no sudden boosts of adrenaline. Instead, you hear people cursing under their breath and fighting off sudden cramps. If you feel physically strong when you hit that bridge, you have a fighting chance for the rest of the race; if you don’t, you might already be cooked. As it turned out, I was thoroughly cooked. I knew with absolute certainty that I would eventually finish, but the bridge made it abundantly clear that this was not going to be the personal record I had trained and hoped for.
Still, my difficult blowup at the London Marathon back in April had taught me a valuable psychological lesson: if you cannot successfully lock into the specific pace you wanted, you must lock into joy instead. And so, I power-walked whenever I had to in order to keep my legs from seizing up into full cramps. But whenever a child stretched a hand out along the barricades, I made sure to run over for a high five. Whenever a spectator shouted my name with enough conviction, I instinctively started running again, as if their words possessed actual magic. The homemade race signs along the route also helped keep my spirits entertained. The best ones riffed brilliantly on the Elizabeth Holmes cultural meme, spotting a sign at mile 18 that read: “There’s only two miles to go, why would I deceive you?” Another sign, capturing the local sports zeitgeist perfectly, declared: “Run If You Hate Wemby.”
Furthermore, I honestly do not think I have ever enjoyed Sour Patch Kids quite as much as the ones pressed into my hand by a pint-sized candy dealer wielding a giant sack of them at mile 21, deep in Harlem, with a daunting five miles still left to run. It was sour at first, then wonderfully sweet.
Later that evening on the subway ride home, draped in my foil blanket and orange finisher poncho, I chatted with other exhausted runners and unpacked the emotional weight of the day. Some passengers were utterly elated simply to have crossed the finish line upright, while others were visibly crushed by finishing times that I would have been absolutely thrilled to achieve. It served as a timely reminder that the day is not really about the clock—mostly, anyway.
Back home at the dinner table that night, over take-out Kung Pao chicken, my kids and I unpacked the day all over again. I admitted to them that I was less than happy with my personal result and that I had a lot of thinking to do regarding how I structure my training for the next race. But I got it done, and I managed to push through it mostly injury-free, though my exact toenail casualty count remains pending.
My younger daughter was proud of a milestone of her own: at only her second cross-country meet, she had run a minute and a half faster than her first outing, slowly learning how to push her limits. Then the conversation naturally drifted to what keeps a person going when things get genuinely difficult. My older daughter thoughtfully noted that she always reminds herself that human beings were built to run, and that this is fundamentally what our bodies were made to do.
I plan to take that simple truth straight into my next training block—along with being a whole lot more prepared for the Queensboro Bridge.
