New York City Marathon Disqualifies Houston Runner Who Smoked Marijuana on the Course

Most runners who take something from a spectator at the New York City Marathon get a slice of orange or a handful of pretzels. Andrea Sager, a 35-year-old lawyer from Houston, was offered marijuana, took a hit, and has now lost her finish time over it.

Sager was running her first marathon on Nov. 1, and a short clip posted to YouTube by a Brooklyn account shows her stopping for it with her bib and pink shirt in full view. New York Road Runners removed her from the results on Tuesday for breaking its Code of Conduct, the New York Post reported Friday. Sager confirmed the disqualification on Instagram, where she gave her time as 5:54, and she told the Post why she said yes.

“I wasn’t planning on smoking weed on the course, but I was in so much pain and needed something to help me finish,” she said.

The shirt had already made her one of the race’s viral runners. The front read “Andrea, 35, Single. Great Credit. Bad Judgment,” and the back said she was “Looking for a man with more endurance than my ex.” Sager, who is divorced with two children and runs a legal tech company alongside her law practice, told TODAY on Nov. 10 that messages from men had been arriving ever since, and that she was starting a video series about dating away from the apps. When the disqualification came, she rewrote the slogan for her Instagram caption: “35. Single. Great credit. Poor judgment. Disqualified.”

What NYRR’s Rule Covers

Smoking gets its own section in NYRR’s Code of Conduct. It bans smoking, vaping and the use of tobacco or marijuana products in the start corrals, on the course and in the finish area, and it stretches that ban to anywhere within 1,000 feet of them. The listed penalties start at disqualification and loss of award eligibility and go as far as a suspension or bar from future NYRR events and the loss of membership.

The race’s rule is a good deal tighter than the city’s. Since New York legalized cannabis in 2021, adults 21 and over may smoke it in most places where tobacco smoking is allowed, according to the city’s health department, although parks are on the list of exceptions, and the marathon finishes in Central Park.

Sager pushed back at first, according to the Post, arguing that a 5:54 marathoner was hardly competing for anything and that she had raised thousands of dollars for charity to get her place, one of the many charity entries in this year’s field. The decision stood, and Sager kept her medal.

“I mean, I get it. It’s annoying, but they didn’t ask for the medal back and I’m getting a lot of coverage, I’m talking with the brands now, so there’s a lot of upside, but still annoying,” she said.

Other Runners NYRR Has Acted Against

NYRR has come down harder on runners who drew attention to themselves on its course. After the 2024 race it disqualified running influencer Matt Choi and barred him from future NYRR races, because two people on e-bikes had filmed him along the route, one of several odd stories from that year’s marathon. On Wednesday, the Post reported that a content creator who ran this year’s race on a copy of another runner’s bib, and was filmed high-fiving Ariana Grande, had been banned from the 2027 edition. Nothing reported so far suggests Sager faces more than the lost result.

Her name is now missing from a results list that holds a record 61,146 finishers, from a day won by Andreas Almgren and Sheila Chepkirui. Sager told the Post she would make the same choice again, and on Instagram she found the joke in it: “Damn, I can’t send my 5:54 to Boston now.”