Men’s course record
2:04:58
Tamirat Tola · 2023
- Average pace
- 2:58 / km
- Terrain-adjusted
- +0.21 %
New York City Marathon
New York, USA The first Sunday in November Founded 1970
Five boroughs and five bridges, from the Verrazzano to Central Park.
Overview
New York puts more people on a start line than almost any race on earth, and spends the whole day showing them the city. The route crosses five boroughs, from Staten Island to Central Park, without ever repeating itself, and about two million people come out to watch.
Race morning is a ferry and a bus and a long wait in a village at Fort Wadsworth. Then comes the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the highest point of the day, with no crowd on it. Brooklyn goes on for nearly 18.0 km, and it's loud. The Queensboro Bridge, at about 23.5 km, is closed to spectators and silent, with the whole field breathing. Then you come off it onto First Avenue, into the crowd.
It finishes in Central Park with the skyline above you. Getting in is the hard part. The 2026 drawing took more than 240,000 applications and accepted about one per cent.
Race morning is a ferry and a bus and a long wait in a village at Fort Wadsworth. Then comes the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, the highest point of the day, with no crowd on it. Brooklyn goes on for nearly 18.0 km, and it's loud. The Queensboro Bridge, at about 23.5 km, is closed to spectators and silent, with the whole field breathing. Then you come off it onto First Avenue, into the crowd.
It finishes in Central Park with the skyline above you. Getting in is the hard part. The 2026 drawing took more than 240,000 applications and accepted about one per cent.
- When
- The 2026 New York City Marathon is on Sunday, 1 November 2026, starting at 8:00am local time on Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island.
- Course
- New York's course climbs 260 m in all, with its lowest point at 2 m and its highest at 71 m.
- Entry
- Entry to New York is by drawing (about 1 in 100), and costs US$333 for 2026.
- Field
- The 2025 New York City Marathon had a marathon field of 59,000+.
- Weather
- Across 29 years, New York's race-day temperature has a median of 10 °C.
- Records
- The New York City Marathon course records are 2:04:58 (Tamirat Tola, 2023) and 2:19:51 (Hellen Obiri, 2025).
Marathon Course · every marathon course, measured the same way
New York City Marathon
Five boroughs and five bridges, from the Verrazzano to Central Park. Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island → Central Park, Manhattan, New York, USA.
- Distance
- 42.2 km
- Ascent
- 260 m
- Descent
- 276 m
- Net
- −16 m
Course map and elevation
5 km splits marked · hover or drag the profile below to move along the courseElevation · a third-party trace of the 2025 edition, with its eight bridge spans rewritten · USGS NED 10 m · smoothed 100 m 2–71 m
—
0.08.517.025.534.042.4
kmmi — elev — grade — hover or drag the profile
The shape comes from five bridges. The start is already 42 m up, on the lower and upper decks of the Verrazzano-Narrows. The course tops out at 71 m at 1.3 km, then falls 44 m in the kilometre from 2.0 km into Brooklyn. That's the fastest ground on the course, and the easiest place to spend a race you haven't run yet.
From there to 20.0 km it's close to level: three 5 km splits, none of them changing by more than 6 m. The lowest point of the race is at 22.3 km, and the climb that follows is the real one. The Queensboro Bridge gains 33 m from 23.5 km, the steepest climbing kilometre of the race, and lands you where the race turns into Manhattan.
First Avenue runs down 36 m between 25.0 km and 30.0 km. Then it tilts back: the Willis Avenue and Madison Avenue bridges through the Bronx, then a steady 16 m of rise along Fifth Avenue from 35.0 km to the park. Add up the energy cost of every gradient and, for a three-hour runner, the course comes out about 24 seconds slower than a flat 42.195 km (0.21 %).
Take it with you
Course GPX Organiser's course map
The GPX is ours: our resampled line, a point every 25 m, carrying USGS NED 10 m elevation rather than the GPS noise a watch file usually holds.
USGS NED 10 m, a third-party trace of the 2025 edition, with its eight bridge spans rewritten, smoothed 100 m · marathoncourse.com/marathons/newyork/ · checked 2026-09-23
How to enter: lottery odds
About one per cent of applicants got through New York's 2026 drawing, the lowest acceptance rate in the race's history. It took more than 240,000 applications from over 160 countries, a near-20 % rise on 2025.
Applications opened on 4 February 2026 and closed on 25 February, with the drawing on 4 March. Entrants are drawn in three separate pools: New York metro residents, other US residents and international runners. Where you live changes your odds.
Entry for 2026 is US$269.66 for New York Road Runners members and US$333.11 for non-members. Those are the prices listed on 23 September 2026. The other ways in are a qualifying time, the 9+1 programme, a charity place, fifteen or more previous New York finishes, an NYRR philanthropic membership, or a guaranteed place bought as part of a package from an official international tour operator.
Two of those are less certain than they sound. For 2026 the time-qualifier route took only the top 10 % of non-NYRR qualifiers, which meant beating the standard by 22:52, so a qualifying time is no longer a guarantee. And 9+1 (run nine NYRR races and volunteer at one in the year before) becomes a members-only drawing itself from 2027, with a US$99 passholder fee for those selected. The first ran from 17 to 29 September 2026.
Applications opened on 4 February 2026 and closed on 25 February, with the drawing on 4 March. Entrants are drawn in three separate pools: New York metro residents, other US residents and international runners. Where you live changes your odds.
Entry for 2026 is US$269.66 for New York Road Runners members and US$333.11 for non-members. Those are the prices listed on 23 September 2026. The other ways in are a qualifying time, the 9+1 programme, a charity place, fifteen or more previous New York finishes, an NYRR philanthropic membership, or a guaranteed place bought as part of a package from an official international tour operator.
Two of those are less certain than they sound. For 2026 the time-qualifier route took only the top 10 % of non-NYRR qualifiers, which meant beating the standard by 22:52, so a qualifying time is no longer a guarantee. And 9+1 (run nine NYRR races and volunteer at one in the year before) becomes a members-only drawing itself from 2027, with a US$99 passholder fee for those selected. The first ran from 17 to 29 September 2026.
History
New York began in 1970 as laps of Central Park, with 127 starters, 55 finishers and a $1 entry fee. Fred Lebow and Vincent Chiappetta organised it. Six years later it left the park for the United States bicentennial. Ted Corbitt, who had measured the original course, first put the idea of running between boroughs to the club. George Spitz turned it into a five-borough marathon and pushed it politically, and Percy Sutton found the money and suggested starting on the Verrazzano-Narrows, the decision that still shapes the course. The form it took in 1976 is the one it has now: Staten Island to Brooklyn to Queens, over the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, up into the Bronx and back down Fifth Avenue to Central Park.
Grete Waitz won nine times from 1978, running 2:32:30 on her marathon debut. That was a world best, in the years before women's marathon records were ratified. The race has been cancelled twice, in 2012 for Hurricane Sandy and in 2020 for the pandemic. It's now one of the two largest marathons in the world. Its 59,226 finishers in 2025 were a record until London's 59,830 in April 2026. The 2026 edition marks fifty years since the five-borough course began, and it's the 55th running since 1970, two short because of the cancelled years.
Grete Waitz won nine times from 1978, running 2:32:30 on her marathon debut. That was a world best, in the years before women's marathon records were ratified. The race has been cancelled twice, in 2012 for Hurricane Sandy and in 2020 for the pandemic. It's now one of the two largest marathons in the world. Its 59,226 finishers in 2025 were a record until London's 59,830 in April 2026. The 2026 edition marks fifty years since the five-borough course began, and it's the 55th running since 1970, two short because of the cancelled years.
- 1970First edition — laps of Central Park, 127 starters, 55 finishers, a $1 entry fee
- 1976The course moves to all five boroughs for the US bicentennial — Spitz's campaign, Corbitt's idea, Sutton's bridge
- 1978Grete Waitz wins the first of nine titles on her marathon debut, in 2:32:30, a world best. Women's marathon records weren't ratified until 2003
- 1992Fred Lebow, the founder, runs his own race at 60 with Waitz beside him, two years after a brain tumour diagnosis
- 2001Run eight weeks after 11 September
- 2012Cancelled two days out after Hurricane Sandy
- 2020Cancelled — the pandemic
- 2023Tamirat Tola runs 2:04:58, the course record
- 2025Hellen Obiri runs 2:19:51, breaking a course record that had stood since 2003; 59,226 finish
- 2026Fifty years since the five-borough course — and the 55th running
197019801990200020102020
Course records
Pace is derived from the certified distance. Terrain-adjusted figures come from the same model that ranks every course on this site.
Women’s course record
2:19:51
Hellen Obiri · 2025
- Average pace
- 3:19 / km
- Terrain-adjusted
- +0.21 %
Race day: start times and cut-offs
- 8:00am
Race morning is built around getting nearly 60,000 people onto Staten Island. Runners travel by the Staten Island Ferry or by bus from Manhattan and New Jersey, hours before they run, and wait in a village at Fort Wadsworth.
In 2025 the first start was 8:00am, for the professional men's wheelchair race. The professional women went at 8:35am, the men at 9:05am, and the last wave around 11:30am. The 2026 schedule isn't published yet, so treat those times as the shape of the morning, not as your start time.
There's no single finish cut-off. The figures in circulation disagree: 13:45 per mile from the last starter, a 15-minute sweep pace, a 20-minute finish-line pace, and a 10:00pm finish-line close. Check the organiser for the year you run.
Start and finish are 20.3 km apart, so plan the end of the day as well as the race. American daylight time ends at 2:00am on race morning, which makes the night before the race an hour longer than it looks.
In 2025 the first start was 8:00am, for the professional men's wheelchair race. The professional women went at 8:35am, the men at 9:05am, and the last wave around 11:30am. The 2026 schedule isn't published yet, so treat those times as the shape of the morning, not as your start time.
There's no single finish cut-off. The figures in circulation disagree: 13:45 per mile from the last starter, a 15-minute sweep pace, a 20-minute finish-line pace, and a 10:00pm finish-line close. Check the organiser for the year you run.
Start and finish are 20.3 km apart, so plan the end of the day as well as the race. American daylight time ends at 2:00am on race morning, which makes the night before the race an hour longer than it looks.
The morning, hour by hour
- 8:00am
- Professional men's wheelchair
- 8:02am
- Professional women's wheelchair
- 8:22am
- Handcycles
- 8:35am
- Professional women
- 9:05am
- Professional men
- to 11:30am
- Mass waves
The 2025 schedule. NYRR hasn't published 2026 wave times yet.
Race-day weather, 1995–2025
- Median
- 10 °C
- Warm years
- 2 of 29
- Wet years
- 2 of 29
Race-day mean temperature, 1995-2025. Lime marks the hottest edition; the coldest and wettest carry a label only, so the colour still means one thing.
Frequently asked questions
Is the New York City Marathon hilly?
It has no hills in the ordinary sense. Its climbs are bridges, and they're badly placed. It climbs 260 m and descends 276 m, finishing 16 m below the start, which is almost flat on paper. But the steepest climbing kilometre, 33 m up the Queensboro Bridge, comes at 23.5 km, and the course rises 19 m over the last 7.0 km along Fifth Avenue.
USGS NED 10 m lidar, sampled every 25 m, smoothed over 100 m. Eight bridge spans are rewritten because a bare-earth model reads the water under a bridge, not the deck the runner is on. The Verrazzano-Narrows, Queensboro, Pulaski, Willis Avenue and Madison Avenue decks are modelled from navigational clearance, which is measured to the underside of a span and sits below the roadway, and two short spans are interpolated. The climb figure is less settled than on a course without bridges.
Can a world record be set in New York?
Yes, though one of the two geometry tests is close. A record course can lose at most a metre per kilometre, and New York loses 16 m in total, or 0.37. Its start and finish must be within 21.1 km; Fort Wadsworth and Central Park are 20.3 km apart, inside the limit by under a kilometre. That margin is 4 % of the limit, and it's measured between the ends of a third-party trace rather than the certified start and finish lines, so it's inside with room but not good to the metre.
Fort Wadsworth to Central Park along the course line, tested against World Athletics Competition Rules Part III.
How many New York applicants get a place?
About one in a hundred through the drawing, and falling. The 2026 drawing took more than 240,000 applications from over 160 countries. That was up nearly 20 % on 2025, and around one per cent got in, the lowest rate in the race's history. Applicants are drawn in three pools, so a New York metro resident, a US resident elsewhere and an international runner aren't competing against each other. The routes that don't depend on luck are a qualifying time, the 9+1 programme, a charity place or a tour operator package.
New York Road Runners drawing-day press release, March 2026.
Where is the hardest part of the course?
The kilometre from 23.5 km, up the Queensboro Bridge. It's the steepest climbing kilometre on the course, 33 m, and it comes just past halfway. The bridge is closed to the public, so it's also the one stretch of the race with no spectators. You come off it onto First Avenue and into the crowds.
Derived from this site's elevation profile: steepest continuous kilometre, measured every 25 m.
How big is it, really?
Very nearly the biggest there's ever been. 59,226 people finished in 2025, the largest marathon ever run until London put 59,830 through the same barrier in April 2026. The two have now traded the record three times in two years. That's why race morning in New York is a ferry-and-bus operation starting before dawn, for a race some runners don't begin until 11:30am.
Organiser figures for the 2025 edition; London's 59,830 from London Marathon Events, April 2026.
How many people run it?
More than 59,226 took a marathon place in 2025. The ballot drew more than 240,000 applications.
Organiser figures for the 2025 edition.
What is the weather like on race day?
About 10 °C during a typical race: that's the median across 29 years, which have run from 5.3 °C to 22 °C. 2 of the 29 were wet.
ERA5 reanalysis for the race date, 1995-2025.
Can I use a time here to qualify for Boston?
Yes, at face value. The course is certified, and its net drop of 16 m is nowhere near the 1,500 ft at which the B.A.A. adds five minutes to a qualifying time. Whether you'll run a qualifying time here is another question. The bridges come at the wrong moments, and the last 7.0 km climb.
Net drop −16 m from this site's course line; 2027 adjustment None. Certification certified: USATF-certified and World Athletics Platinum Label; eligible for records on both geometry tests.
How accurate is the elevation figure?
It comes from USGS NED 10 m, sampled every 25 m along the course line and smoothed over 100 m. The raw-to-smoothed ratio here is 1.27. Around 1.3 means the model is reading the ground, not rooftops; above about 2.0 the total climb carries real noise, and the net change is the sturdier number.
0 missing samples · 8 bridge spans corrected.
Sources
Every fact on this page, its source, and the date it was checked · 10
| Fact | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| Course line | Third-party GPX published for the 2025 edition, validated against the certified 42.195 km (measured 42.608 km, 0.98 % long, from a file with only 455 points). Archived with its hash in data/raw/sources. | 2026-09-20 |
| Elevation | USGS NED 10 m lidar via OpenTopoData, sampled every 25 m, smoothed over 100 m. Raw-to-smoothed gain ratio 1.27. Eight bridge spans are corrected because a bare-earth model reads the water under a bridge rather than the deck: five of them — the Verrazzano-Narrows, Queensboro, Pulaski, Willis Avenue and Madison Avenue — are modelled from navigational clearance, which is measured to the underside of a span, so those heights are floors. Runners also cross the Verrazzano on two different decks. | 2026-09-20 |
| Race-day weather | ERA5 reanalysis via the Open-Meteo archive, the first Sunday in November 1995–2025 at the Fort Wadsworth start, 08:00–18:00 local. | 2026-09-23 |
| Course records and history | Tola 2:04:58 (2023); Obiri 2:19:51 (2025). Founding, the 1976 five-borough change, and the 59,226 finishers of 2025 — the largest marathon ever run until London's 59,830 in April 2026. The finisher count comes from New York Road Runners (31,927 men, 27,156 women, 143 non-binary); the Wikipedia lead sentence says 59,135 and its own footnote contradicts it. | 2026-09-23 |
| Drawing numbers | New York Road Runners: more than 240,000 applications from over 160 countries for the 2026 drawing, a near-20 % rise on 2025, with about one per cent accepted. | 2026-09-23 |
| Entry fees | US$269.66 for NYRR members and US$333.11 for non-members, 2026, from secondary reporting — the organiser's entry pages sit behind a queue. | 2026-09-23 |
| Start times and cut-off | 2025 schedule: first start 8:00am (professional men's wheelchair), professional women 8:35am, professional men 9:05am, last wave about 11:30am. The 2026 schedule is not published. Cut-off figures in circulation conflict and none could be confirmed: nyrr.org sits behind a Queue-it waiting room that blocks automated reads. | 2026-09-23 |
| Record eligibility | World Athletics Competition Rules, Book C, Part III — Competition Rule 31.21: a record course may lose no more than 1 m per kilometre, and its start and finish may be no more than 21.098 km apart. New York loses 15.6 m and separates by 20.25 km — inside both, the second by about 800 m. | 2026-09-23 |
| Entry routes and drawing dates | Applications 4–25 February 2026, drawing 4 March, three pools (New York metro, other US, international). Time qualifiers limited to the top 10 % of non-NYRR applicants for 2026. 9+1 becomes a member drawing with a US$99 passholder fee from 2027 — announced 6 August 2026, first drawing 17–29 September 2026. Re-check after 1 October 2026. | 2026-09-23 |
| Founding and the five-borough change | 1970 first edition organised by Fred Lebow and Vincent Chiappetta. The 1976 five-borough course came from Ted Corbitt's inter-borough proposal, George Spitz's campaign and Percy Sutton's backing and Verrazzano suggestion. Grete Waitz's 1978 debut was a women's world record. | 2026-09-23 |
Until the New York City Marathon · 1 Nov 2026
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— hrs— min— sec
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