The Only Runner to Finish Every Five-Borough NYC Marathon Lines Up Again at 83

When Dave Obelkevich ran across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in October 1976, the New York City Marathon was leaving Central Park for the first time, and 2,090 runners had entered. Last year the race had 59,226 finishers. Obelkevich, now 83, is the only person who has finished every five-borough edition in between, and he will be back on Staten Island on Sunday to go for one more.

The course turns 50 this year, and New York Road Runners has marked it with a finisher medal built around the five bridges on the route. Two of those 50 years went without a race, though. The 2012 marathon was called off after Hurricane Sandy, and the 2020 edition was cancelled because of the pandemic, which makes Sunday the 49th time the field has run through all five boroughs. A finish would give Obelkevich 49 in a row on that course and his 50th New York City Marathon overall, counting the 1974 race he ran on the old loops of the park.

Obelkevich first came to the race as a spectator in 1973, when the marathon was still run entirely on laps of Central Park, and jumped in for a single loop without a bib, he told New York Road Runners in a profile published last week. A year later he entered for real and finished in 4:20:27. In 1975 he pulled out partway with dizzy spells, and that remains the only New York City Marathon he has not completed.

A Columbia graduate who taught music in New York City high schools for 27 years, Obelkevich was quick in his prime. His best New York came in 1982, when he ran 2:40:34 and placed 394th of 13,566 finishers, according to a profile in Columbia College Today.

Until 2009 he shared the streak with his friend Tucker Andersen, who missed that year’s race with a knee injury, DNAinfo reported in 2016. The streak very nearly ended much earlier, around 25 years ago, when his entry was turned down. His wife, Lyn, wrote to NYRR explaining what was at stake, his place was granted, and not long afterwards the organization started guaranteeing a place to anyone with 15 or more finishes, he told NYRR.

In 2020 he spent weeks in intensive care after emergency surgery for an aortic aneurysm. He was back on the course a year later and walked the 2021 race in 7:29:39. His daughter, Maria, has gone the full distance beside him every year since, and she will be with him again on Sunday. “At age 82, I battled balance issues as I got more fatigued,” he told NYRR of last year’s race. “I got through it thanks to my grit and Maria being an outstanding guide and support.”

Expect him to walk most of Sunday’s 26.2 miles. “If I run a quarter of a mile, I get completely out of breath. So my walking is going to be what I do in the marathon,” Obelkevich told CBS New York this week. His finishing time stopped mattering to him somewhere in his late 60s, as he explained to Men’s Health: “Some use a stopwatch. I use a calendar. I just want to finish.”

Sunday will also be his 116th marathon, according to CBS New York, and Columbia College Today reports that he was the first American to finish South Africa’s Comrades Marathon 10 times. The longest streak at any single marathon belongs to Michigan’s Mark Bauman, who took 56 straight Boston finishes into this year’s race.

Obelkevich told NYRR he has no plans to pick a final New York City Marathon. “I will let my body tell me when my streak is up,” he said, “and I hope that is a long time from now.”