The Ultimate Guide To The New York City Marathon (2026)

Here is our complete guide to everything you need to know about the 2026 TCS New York City Marathon, whether you are running it, watching from the sidewalk or following from home.

The 55th New York City Marathon starts on Staten Island on Sunday, Nov. 1, 50 years after the race first took on all five boroughs. Nearly 60,000 runners are expected on a course that crosses five bridges and changes in the Bronx for the first time in 15 years. Benson Kipruto and Hellen Obiri, who set the women’s course record of 2:19:51 last November, are back to defend their titles, and the two fastest American men in history, Conner Mantz and Zouhair Talbi, will be on the same start line.

2026 New York City Marathon: Key Race Day Information

• Date: Sunday, Nov. 1, 2026
• Start: Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island
• Finish: Central Park, near Tavern on the Green
• Professional starts: women 8:35 a.m., men 9:05 a.m. ET
• Waves: 9:10, 9:45, 10:20, 10:55 and 11:30 a.m. ET
• Field: nearly 60,000 runners
• Official timing: results are recorded until 10 p.m. ET
• Course records: 2:04:58 (Tamirat Tola, 2023) and 2:19:51 (Hellen Obiri, 2025)
• Defending champions: Benson Kipruto (Kenya) and Hellen Obiri (Kenya)

2026 New York City Marathon Start Times

Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. on race morning, so the clocks go back an hour overnight. Phones update themselves, but check any watch, alarm clock or pace band set to the time of day, and check your ferry or bus time against your wave. All times are Eastern.

• 8:00 a.m.: professional men’s wheelchair race
• 8:02 a.m.: professional women’s wheelchair race
• 8:22 a.m.: handcycles and select athletes with disabilities
• 8:35 a.m.: professional women
• 9:05 a.m.: professional men
• 9:10 a.m.: Wave 1
• 9:45 a.m.: Wave 2
• 10:20 a.m.: Wave 3
• 10:55 a.m.: Wave 4
• 11:30 a.m.: Wave 5

Corrals close 15 to 25 minutes before each wave: at 8:45 a.m. for Wave 1, 9:25 for Wave 2, 10 for Wave 3, 10:40 for Wave 4 and 11:15 for Wave 5. NYRR says start times are subject to change, so check the official app the day before.

How to Watch the New York City Marathon

WABC-TV Channel 7 carries the race in New York, with pre-race coverage from 7 a.m. and the race live from 8 a.m., streaming on ABC7NY.com and the ABC7 New York app. Nationally, ESPN2 and the ESPN App have it from 8 to 11:30 a.m. ET, with a Spanish-language feed on ESPN3, and ABC airs a finish-line show from 3 to 5 p.m. ET. On the radio it’s 710 WOR and iHeartRadio. Our full viewing guide has the start time around the world, the international broadcasters and the best places to watch in person.

How to Track a Runner in the New York City Marathon

The free TCS New York City Marathon App tracks every runner in real time, with splits at every 5K, halfway and the finish, and carries live coverage of the professional races. Download it and add your runners before race morning.

The New York City Marathon Course

The course is a point-to-point tour of all five boroughs. It starts at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island and crosses the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in the first two miles, then runs the length of Brooklyn up Fourth Avenue, through Fort Greene, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The Pulaski Bridge takes runners into Queens at halfway, and the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan at mile 16. First Avenue runs north to the Willis Avenue Bridge and the Bronx at mile 20, and the Madison Avenue Bridge brings runners back into Manhattan for the run down Fifth Avenue, through Harlem and into Central Park.

New for 2026, the route through the Bronx changes for the first time since 2011. Between miles 20 and 21, runners now stay on Alexander Avenue past East 138th Street, then turn onto East 141st Street, Third Avenue and East 138th Street to reach the Madison Avenue Bridge. That takes the borough from seven turns to five and leaves the distance unchanged. What changed in the Bronx.

Elevation

New York is not a flat course. The certified course climbs about 920 feet in total, and the biggest climbs are all on bridges: the Verrazzano in the first mile, the Pulaski at halfway, the long lower deck of the Queensboro at miles 15 and 16, and the short, steep ramp onto the Willis Avenue Bridge at mile 20. The hardest climb comes late, on Fifth Avenue between 110th and 90th Streets at miles 23 and 24, and Central Park rolls all the way to the finish. Our NYC Marathon pace calculator builds a mile-by-mile plan around every one of them.

Aid Stations and Refill Stations

There are fluid stations at every mile from mile 3 to mile 25, with water at all of them and Gatorade Endurance at all but miles 5, 7 and 9. Maurten gels are handed out at miles 12 and 18, and bananas at mile 21. Medical tents start at mile 3 and are at every mile after that.

New this year, five self-serve refill stations at miles 8, 14, 17, 20 and 23 will fill your own cup, bottle or vest, the first time the race has offered them. How the refill stations work.

Time Limit

Official finish times are recorded until 10 p.m. ET, whatever time you start. Sweep buses follow the back of the field at about 16 minutes a mile, and roads reopen behind them. Runners who finish after the course closes still get a medal, but no official result.

Getting to the Start

Runners chose their transportation and departure time in September. The options are the Staten Island Ferry from Whitehall Terminal followed by a shuttle bus to Fort Wadsworth, buses from Midtown Manhattan, and buses from MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge closes to traffic early in the morning, and there is no parking at the start, so being dropped off is not an option. Allow for a long wait in the start village: bring old layers to throw away, which are collected for charity.

There is no bag check at the start and no transport for bags from Staten Island to Central Park. Runners who chose pre-race bag drop leave their bags in Central Park on Friday or Saturday. Everyone else gets a post-race poncho at the finish.

What You Can Bring

Only the clear Start Village bag handed out at the expo is allowed at the start, and everything you bring has to fit in it. Backpacks, rolling bags, glass, alcohol, aerosols, drones, selfie sticks and large blankets are banned, along with weighted vests and hydration packs with a rear bladder. Check the full list in your runner guide before you pack.

New York City Marathon Weather

Early November in New York is usually cool and dry, with starts in the 40s or 50s Fahrenheit. Late waves run into the warmest part of the day, so a runner starting at 11:30 a.m. can finish in conditions several degrees warmer than the Wave 1 start. Long-range forecasts a week and a half out pointed to a cool, mostly dry morning around 50°F, but they will move. The National Weather Service forecast covers race day from about Oct. 25, and we will update this section as it firms up.

The New York City Marathon Expo and Race Weekend

The TCS New York City Marathon Expo presented by New Balance is at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, and it is the only place to collect your bib. You need an appointment, booked through your NYRR account, and photo ID, and no one can collect a bib on your behalf.

• Thursday, Oct. 29: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (bib pickup until 7:30 p.m.)
• Friday, Oct. 30: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (bib pickup until 7:30 p.m.)
• Saturday, Oct. 31: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (bib pickup until 4:30 p.m.)

On Saturday morning, the Dash to the Finish Line 5K finishes on the marathon’s finish line in Central Park. The 2026 finisher medal, unveiled earlier this month, is gold, 3.5 inches wide and wraps a sculpted skyline around the five bridges on the course for the 50th anniversary of the five-borough race. See the medal.

Shakeout Run and Mile Zero With Marathon Handbook

We’re hosting two events on Saturday, Oct. 31, the day before the race:

• 8:30 a.m.: Marathon Handbook × Wahoo shakeout run. A relaxed 5K from Joe Coffee Company, 187 Columbus Avenue at West 68th Street, then chat, carbs, coffee and giveaways. It’s free, but reserve a spot.
• 2 p.m. to 5 p.m.: Mile Zero. Our live show on the eve of the race, a live recording of the Marathon Handbook podcast with Michael Doyle, Katelyn Tocci and Alex Cyr, plus special guests and swag, at the Jerry Orbach Theater, 210 West 50th Street. Get tickets. RunClub members get up to three tickets free.

The 2026 New York City Marathon Elite Field

Men

Kipruto won last year in 2:08:09, beating Alexander Mutiso by three hundredths of a second in the closest finish in the race’s history, and he arrives with the fastest personal best in the field, 2:02:16. Abdi Nageeye won here in 2024 and Geoffrey Kamworor in 2017 and 2019. Deresa Geleta (2:02:38) and CyBrian Kotut make their New York debuts, Iliass Aouani brings a world championship bronze, and Andreas Almgren, who won the world half marathon title in Copenhagen in September, runs his first marathon.

The American story is Mantz against Talbi. Mantz set the American record of 2:04:43 in Chicago last October, then missed Boston with a sacral stress fracture, and was the top American at the world half marathon championships in September. Talbi ran 2:03:45 at Boston in April, on a course where records don’t count. Joel Reichow, Joe Klecker, Ryan Ford and Paul Chelimo lead the rest of the Americans. The two fastest Americans in marathon history.

Women

Obiri took more than two and a half minutes off the course record last year and won the NYC Half again in March. Sheila Chepkirui, the 2024 champion, Gotytom Gebreslase and former champion Edna Kiplagat lead the challengers. Sifan Hassan withdrew in mid-October after an illness disrupted her training, and Fiona O’Keeffe, fourth last year, had surgery on a torn hamstring tendon. Jess McClain, the fastest American woman ever at Boston, and Annie Frisbie lead the Americans, and Weini Kelati, the American half marathon record holder, makes her debut. Hassan and O’Keeffe withdraw.

Wheelchair

Marcel Hug defends the men’s title he has won seven times, against a field that includes David Weir, Daniel Romanchuk and Tomoki Suzuki. Last year’s women’s champion, Susannah Scaroni, is not racing, which leaves a women’s field led by Tatyana McFadden, Catherine Debrunner and Eden Rainbow-Cooper.

New York City Marathon Prize Money

NYRR had not published the 2026 prize money when we published. Last year the open winners each took home $100,000, with $60,000 for second and $40,000 for third, and Obiri earned a $50,000 bonus for her course record. Top American finishers also earn extra prize money on top of what they win for their overall place.

2025 New York City Marathon Results

	Men	Women
1	Benson Kipruto (KEN) 2:08:09	Hellen Obiri (KEN) 2:19:51
2	Alexander Mutiso (KEN) 2:08:09	Sharon Lokedi (KEN) 2:20:07
3	Patrick Dever (GBR) 2:08:58	Sheila Chepkirui (KEN) 2:20:24

Dever was moved up to third after original third-place finisher Albert Korir was banned for doping. Marcel Hug and Susannah Scaroni won the wheelchair races, and 59,226 runners finished, then a world record.

How to Get Into the 2027 New York City Marathon

More than 240,000 people applied for the 2026 drawing and about 1% got in, so most runners who make it come through 9+1, a qualifying time, a charity place, a tour operator or a canceled entry. The 2027 drawing dates have not been announced. Our New York City Marathon hub has every route in and the 2027 qualifying times, and here is how the new 9+1 drawing works.

Good luck to everyone running on Sunday.