NYC Marathon Is Going Back to Central Park — Four Loops and All

The New York City Marathon, the largest marathon in the world, is heading back to its roots.

New York Road Runners (NYRR) announced Wednesday that the 2026 TCS New York City Marathon will abandon its iconic five-borough course and return to the race’s original format: four-plus loops inside Central Park. The race is scheduled for Sunday, November 1.

The decision marks a dramatic departure from the course that has defined the race since 1976, when the marathon first wound through all five boroughs to celebrate the U.S. Bicentennial. That route — crossing the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, cutting through Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan — became the gold standard for big-city marathon design worldwide.

Now, 55,000 runners will trade that experience for repeated climbs up Harlem Hills.

Back to Where It Started

The first NYC Marathon took place in 1970 with just 127 entrants and 55 finishers, all of them completing four laps of Central Park in relative obscurity. No five boroughs, no roaring crowds lining the bridges, no wall of noise in Brooklyn’s Fourth Avenue. Just the park, some stopwatches, and a finish line near Tavern on the Green.

For 2026, NYRR says runners will complete four loops of the six-mile Ted Corbitt Loop — named for NYRR’s founding president — plus one final trip around the park’s lower loop to make up the full 26.2 miles.

“Sometimes, to move forward, you have to go back,” said NYRR CEO Rob Simmelkjaer. “As we celebrate 50 years of the five-borough course, we’re thrilled to honor our origins by reimagining the marathon as it was in 1970 — with tens of thousands more runners, two million more spectators, and endless opportunities to admire the beauty of Central Park.”

What Runners Can Expect

The new format comes with a few throwbacks baked in. NYRR has confirmed handwritten bibs and analog timing via stopwatches, paper, and pen — a nod to the race’s bare-bones origins.

On the plus side, spectators won’t have to pick one spot and hope their runner passes before they lose feeling in their feet. They can plant themselves anywhere in the park and watch the same runners go by four times. If you’re planning to cheer someone on, the race day experience is about to get a lot simpler.

Race Director Ted Metellus put a positive spin on the loop format. “We’ve always said the finish line in Central Park is magical,” he said. “This year, you’ll be able to pass it several times before you’re actually done.”

Runners will also get four chances to pass the famous statue of marathon founder Fred Lebow — who, if he could weigh in, might have some thoughts.

The Math

Four loops of the Ted Corbitt Loop (roughly 6 miles each) gets you to around 24 miles, with the lower loop adding the final 2.2. The Harlem Hills section, one of the more unforgiving stretches in any New York race, appears on the course four times. Runners chasing a personal best may want to recalibrate their expectations — and their race day plan — accordingly.

The date of this announcement was April 1, 2026. We’ll leave the rest to you.