NYC Marathon: 55,000+ Runners, 2 Million Spectators

More than 55,000 runners hoofed it 26.2 miles, from Staten Island to Central Park, at speeds ranging from a startling sprint to a grueling trudge in the TCS New York City marathon on Nov. 2. An estimated 2 million spectators also lined the streets.

The women’s race was won by 2023 victor, 35-year-old Hellen Obiri, in a course record 2:19:51 (5:21 mile pace), after she dropped 2022 champion Sharon Lokedi in the last mile.

The men’s race was won by 34-year-old Kenyan Benson Kipruto in 2:08:09 (4:54 mile pace), besting his compatriot Alexander Mutiso Munyao in a photo finish by 0.03 seconds.

Weather for the event was near ideal, sunny, with temperatures in the low 50s, and little wind. The course is difficult, with dragging hills and bridges. Indeed, many people have had their races later go cockeyed because they got overexcited running down the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn. The subsequent spans are the Pulaski, from Greenpoint to Long Island City; the 59th Street Bridge into Manhattan; the Willis Avenue Bridge from East Harlem into Mott Haven, the Willis and the Madison Avenue bridges.

It was on the Manhattan side of this last span—a four-lane swing bridge over the Harlem River—where this reporter made his base camp: Fifth Avenue and East 138th Street. This location was chosen because it offers the best combination of access and drama. It’s far enough into the race—just past the 21-mile mar—that there’s great suffering but still early enough that the front-runners are closely packed.

The short walk over to the boisterous Bronx and down to Marcus Garvey Park, which sits astride Fifth Avenue and 124th Street, and where the course half loops around its western perimeter before continuing south on Fifth, are bonuses.

What the Bronx lacks in miles, it makes up for in intensity, including the bridge itself, whose pedestrian walkway is a favored spot of knowing spectators who bring mordant signs with them such as “Last Damn Bridge” and “F**k it up Buttercup.”

A banner reading “Break The Wall, Boogie Down Bronx Runners” hanging from the Metro North Railroad bridge over East 138th Street was no joke, however, and soon many an athlete would be seen walking, in pain or exhaustion, as they came off the Madison Avenue Bridge onto Fifth Avenue.

Fatigue almost played an issue among the elite runners on Rider Avenue too, when three women race leaders were overtaking a lone male wheelchair racer, far off the pace. Normal track etiquette says the wheelchair should have moved aside to let the women pass, and though this was the road, the women’s arrival couldn’t have been a surprise because they were preceded by NYPD and race vehicles. While the leading trio did eventually get by, the near tangle was both worrying and unnecessary.

Following the women back into Manhattan, this reporter awaited the arrival of the leading men, including the legendary Eliud Kipchoge, widely considered one of greatest distance runners of all time, in his NYC Marathon debut. Though the 41-year-old only placed 17th overall, 2:14:36, he did place second in his age group.

As a stream of fast but sub-elite runners continued to come off the bridge, their numbers steadily growing, this reporter took a moment to survey the scene. This included a disc jockey playing ‘70s and ‘80s R&B music, with James Brown’s “The Big Payback” especially exciting the crowd, and the sight of both an arrogant e-biker and hapless Amazon delivery-cart pushers trying to get across Fifth Avenue or 138th Street through the ever-thickening field of runners.

Why Amazon supervisors didn’t inform their workers there was a gigantic race this morning and work around it is unknown but it required the intervention of a tall, lean, older-looking black gentleman in a lamb-trimmed leather jacket to help a short, scared, Hispanic immigrant woman get her heavily stacked cart across 138th Street before she and the runners got creamed.

“You’re a good man,” this reporter told him after witnessing this helpful act. A conversation about running followed during which the man suddenly turned away from me—was our coversation over? No, he’d only turned out of the bright sun to fiddle with his phone, which he then showed me. It was an article about the very man I was talking to, Ernest Connor, who in 1980 set a world record for running the New York City Marathon . . . backwards, in 5 hours 11 minutes. Scanning the story, and then looking at the man before him again, the reporter respectfully bowed.

What gave you that idea? Connor, now 81 years old, said he was living in the Bronx then, which was in a very bad place. Running the race marathon backwards would prove how one can triumph over adversity. Connor lives in Atlantic City now, and says he’s doing well. Each year he returns to this corner to cheer others in their journey to the finish line.

Running forward, the first female New Yorker—and the first Manhattanite—was 23-year-old Felicia Pasadyn whose time of 2:35:17 earned her 14th place. While this is a great result, and indicative of someone who was a college athlete, what’s shocking is that Pasadyn was a Division 1 swimmer, competing three years at Harvard and one at Ohio State. Presently, she attends medical school at NYU.

On the male side, the first city resident was 32-year-old Matthew Leach, finishing in 2:15:48. Originally from Winchester, Great Britain, Leach ran cross-country and track for the University of San Francisco.