Next edition: 1 November 2026
Five bridges, no climb anyone bothers to name, and a profile that looks modest right up to the moment the Queensboro empties you onto First Avenue with the crowd gone and your quads already spent.
Figures from 2025.
The largest marathon in the world by finishers, and one of the most international: 31% of the field came from outside the United States, 132 countries were represented, and Brazil cracked the top ten countries for the first time. No bucket table or DNF rate is published.
There is no single limit. From wave 5 you need to hold 16 min/mile (about 9:56/km) to keep closed roads and full aid; behind that pace it is sidewalks or the sweep bus.
The other clock is absolute: official finishes are recorded until 10:00 p.m., whichever wave you started in. Cross after that and you are not in the results.
No intermediate cut-off table is published.
Point to point through the five boroughs, Staten Island to Central Park. Roughly 166 ft (51 m) of climbing and a net drop of 88 ft (27 m) on a GPS reading of the course. Certified and Boston-qualifying.
The 166 ft (51 m) comes from a GPS file rather than a survey, and that kind of reading tends to flatten bridges. The number matters less than its distribution: nearly all of the climbing sits in five bridges and in the last four miles through Central Park, and there is no single sustained ascent anywhere.
Miles 0-2 / km 0-3, Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Up, then down: the sharpest descent of the day, arriving while you are fresh and boxed in by people, which is the worst possible combination.
Miles 2-13 / km 3-21, Brooklyn. Fourth Avenue and then Bedford: long, wide, nearly flat, and the loudest crowd of the first half.
Miles 13-15 / km 21-24, Pulaski Bridge and Queens. The Pulaski marks halfway and the handover into Queens.
Miles 15-16 / km 24-26, Queensboro Bridge. The longest climb on the course, on steel roadway, with no spectators and in half-light.
Miles 16-20 / km 26-32, First Avenue. You come off the bridge onto the widest, loudest avenue of the race. This is where the day is decided.
Miles 20-21 / km 32-34, Willis Avenue Bridge and the Bronx. The fourth bridge, arriving at the worst possible mile.
Miles 22-26.2 / km 35-42, Fifth Avenue and Central Park. The long pull up Fifth into the park, and inside it the two rises that do have names: Cat Hill and Harlem Hill, between miles 23 and 24 (km 37-39). Finish at West 67th, by Tavern on the Green.
November in New York: a typical start between 8 and 12 °C, with wind on the bridges, which is where it is felt because nothing blocks it. We found no station log for the 2025 race morning and do not estimate one.
The number that changes your preparation is not the temperature, it is the wait. Several hours sit between the time you have to be on Staten Island and the time your wave goes, most of them outdoors and sitting down. At 8 °C that is not an inconvenience; it is a clothing and fuelling decision.
Five waves, from 9:10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Drawn into the last one and you are still running at three in the afternoon.
One clock warning for 2026: 1 November is the Sunday the US ends daylight saving time. Confirm your wave's local start time with the organiser, and do not do the time-zone arithmetic from home without checking it.
The drawing opens in winter, nearly a year ahead. Outside it there are four routes: NYRR's 9+1 programme, the time qualifier, charity places, and accredited tour operators.
Lottery, with time qualifier, 9+1, charity and tour entries as alternatives
The time qualifier is the most reliable route if you run fast, with one condition that catches people out: only a marathon counts, on a certified course, and for non-NYRR members it has to be from the previous calendar year. A half or a 10K will not do it here.
The course itself is Boston-qualifying.
Five waves, three colours, six corrals, assigned on your estimated finish. You can move back to a slower wave, never up to a faster one. Official time is net.
It does not sell out, it is drawn. Applications vastly exceed places, and no year-on-year success rate is published in comparable form.
Entry and conditions verified on 11 September 2026. The organiser is the source for any date that moves.
New York is not trained like a flat marathon, whatever the profile says.
The bridges are the hills. There is no long climb; there are five short concrete-and-steel ramps, cambered and crowd-free, and the worst of them lands at km 24 (mile 15). In the block that means three-to-five-minute hill efforts at marathon effort, placed inside the long run and after km 20 — not in a separate hill session on fresh legs, which is precisely the situation you will not be in.
The Verrazzano is the same problem from the other end. The first two miles carry the steepest descent of the day, with adrenaline and people pushing. Running downhill at pace is pure eccentric work, and the damage does not announce itself until mile 20. You prevent it with controlled descents in the block, not by avoiding them.
Central Park has to be trained at the end. The two named rises sit at miles 23 and 24 — after km 37. The last three long runs of the block should finish uphill, even on a modest ramp.
And the wait is part of the race. Four hours can pass between arriving on Staten Island and your wave going. Rehearse at least two long runs on the same schedule: wake, eat, wait three or four hours eating very little, and only then run. It is the one rehearsal that matters and almost nobody does it.
7 weeks out: you are already inside the 12-week window. Start from where you are and adjust the opening weeks' volume, not the other way round.
Three levels, two durations, heart-rate based. Choose by the volume you can sustain, not the volume you would like to run.
Entries closed Entries are not open right now: the 2026 drawing already ran in the usual winter window; the 2027 one opens early in the year. These blocks still apply if you already have a place, or if you are chasing the qualifier.
You do not need to be exactly 12 or 18 weeks out. A specific block is not started from zero — you arrive at it already active, and these plans are the last part of that road.
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Four hours sitting on Staten Island before you start running appear in no twelve-week plan, and they are the part of the day most people improvise.
A calendar plan does not know which corral you drew, how last month went, or what to do when the week falls apart. If what you have just read about this race changes your approach, that is a conversation, not a PDF.
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