We Re-Ran the 2026 New York City Marathon, Age Graded. A 46-Year-Old Won.

All 61,000 finishers restarted together, each moving at the speed of their age-graded score. Watch it play out, then find yourself in it.

Andreas Almgren crossed the line first in Central Park, in 2:06:01. But measured against what is possible at each runner’s age and sex, the best run of the day belonged to a 46-year-old. Edna Kiplagat, a two-time world champion who won New York in 2010, ran 2:25:42 and finished 54th. Age grading scores that run at 99.77 percent, a fraction short of the standard for a woman her age. Almgren’s winning run scored 97.57 percent, second on the day.

So we ran the race again. The map below restarts all 61,018 runners together at the Verrazzano and scales each runner’s time to their age-graded score, so where a runner finishes reflects how good their run was for their age and sex rather than how fast it was. Each runner keeps the pacing they actually ran, including the fast starts, the slower miles over the bridges and the late surges, so the order shifts along the way, much as it did on the day. By the finish, Kiplagat crosses the line first and Almgren second.

Age grading compares a finish time with the best performance considered possible for a runner of the same age and sex, using World Masters Athletics standards, so 100 percent is world-record level for that age. It puts a 68-year-old and a 31-year-old on the same scale. Professionals still fill most of the top of the ranking: 43 of the top 50 started in the professional field, and it takes 90.24 percent to make the list.

Take the professionals out and the ranking gets older. More than half of the top 50 amateurs are 50 or older, and nine of the top 20 are 60 or older. The best amateur score belonged to Gwen J., 68, of Rochester, Minn., whose 3:18:31 rated 96.35 percent, higher than all but a dozen of the professionals. Only seven amateurs in the race scored 90 percent or better; 368 scored 80 percent or better.

Enter your bib to see where you would have finished in the age-graded race and follow yourself through it, follow any of the top 50, or switch to the real race to compare.