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How the NYC Marathon has changed in the last 50 years
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Oct 14, 2026
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Photo by Al Pereira/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Oct 14, 2026
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The New York City Marathon is having a good run.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of its five-borough incarnation. The first official city marathon, in 1970, involved running four loops within Central Park; 127 runners paid $1 directly to the organizers to participate. (Cost of entry is now $250-$350.)
The first five-borough marathon, which took place in 1976, was initially intended as a one-off event in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial. It has since become so entrenched in New York culture that it’s now functionally emotional shorthand for – depending on your proclivities – a day of cheer, celebration, competition, a pie-in-the-sky goal or bad traffic.
The race’s core elements and length remain the same, but the mythology surrounding it is far from the only thing that’s changed in the decades since.
Those changes include regulatory details – the addition of the ever-changing finisher medal, an 18-year age minimum, aid stations, and the race now being held in November and not October – as well as core shifts that reflect far beyond the race, to the essence of run culture and the landscape of the city.
“I think the biggest difference is, first and foremost, the city itself,” said Ted Metellus, a Bronx native and New York Road Runners’ chief event production officer and race director since 2024. When the race moved from Central Park to the streets in 1976, the city was on the brink of bankruptcy, swaths of it looked like war zones, and its reputation was one of danger and dire straits.
The marathon “was seen as a ray of light during those really dark times in New York,” said Metellus. It was a competition that celebrated the outer boroughs, and it planted “a seed, globally, of what an urban marathon can look like, the fact that it can happen,” significantly inspiring the London Marathon, Metellus said.
The five-borough route itself has stayed relatively consistent in recent years, unchanged over the last 15, excepting this year’s small change to a portion in the Bronx.
There are three other ways the marathon has significantly evolved since its inaugural five-borough course in 1976.
Scale
“In 1971, the New York City Marathon was no bigger than a grade-school field day,” author Edward McClelland once wrote of the event.
Last year, the marathon broke its own record again with over 59,000 finishers.
Dave Obelkevich, 83, is the race’s top “streaker,” or longest consecutive race runner. This year will be his 51st NYC Marathon, having run in every five-borough race as well as in Central Park in 1974.
Over the decades, he said, the event's size has undergone the biggest shift – not just in numbers, but also in gender diversity. Not a single woman finished the first NYC marathon in Central Park; today, tens of thousands do. The number of professional and international competitors has also greatly increased.
“In the early days when you were running the race, you would see a few other people in the race, but most likely they were from the northeast part of the United States. There were hardly any foreigners,” Obelkevich recalled. If there were foreigners, they were elite runners, “and I was nowhere near the elite runners,” he said.
“The community of runners has changed, has grown, has become more diverse,” Metellus said. “We have more young people running. We have more older people running. We have more athletes with disabilities running. We have more people of color running than ever before.”
More racers also means increased competition. Over 240,000 people from more than 160 countries applied to this year's marathon. Only about 1% were accepted, but there are now a variety of entry methods to ensure the event remains inclusive. A lottery application process for race registration, established in 1996, remains in place. The current model of multiple waves at the starting line was introduced in 2008; currently there are five. And since 2000, there has also been an official wheelchair division race.
Becoming one of the world’s largest marathons has also meant having to scale up the available amenities and facilities. Today, race setup involves over 1,600 portable toilets, 465 of them spread across 40 locations (including every mile) along the course, along with waste, water and lactation stations. Bananas will once again be made available at mile 21.
This year, some 11,000 volunteers are slated to help out in the week leading up to race day, with 8,500 volunteers on the day of.
Technology
The race was once a much more analog affair.
“ If you were a course marshal, or a course timer – a person with a stopwatch that was standing at a mile marker, calling out the splits – you were handed a bag of quarters. And [management] said, ‘All right, if you need anything, call in at the payphone over there,’” Metellus said of early protocol.
Today, each runner has a timing chip on their bib and is tracked via an app, helping supporters find them on the route, and ensuring highly accurate accounting of their progress. That means no more fraudsters riding the subway mid-race, as Rosie Ruiz famously did in 1979, before showing up at the finish line.
“Technology now is such that it makes it more efficient to communicate to the masses, inform the masses, keep people moving along, and keep people safe,” Metellus said.
The culture of cheer
While today's marathons feature joyously supportive legions of spectators, early marathons mostly consisted of participants running around in their underwear.
"[Passersby] kind of made fun of them,” Obelkevich said, laughing.
Runners used to see two or three people in the course of a mile, half of them drunk and asking, "Hey, what’s going on here?” Obelkevich said. “Why don’t you get a car like normal people?"
"Now, you see thousands of people, and they’re very supportive. The entire feeling of the city is upbeat and positive," he said.
Awareness of the marathon has also increased significantly. Today, “If I wear a shirt that says ‘NYC Marathon,’ people will say, ‘Oh, I know Sarah, who just ran the marathon. Do you know her?'”
But once upon a time, Obelkevich said most marathoners ran for a running club, or they had friends who ran, and that's the thing that their friends did.
"Nowadays, it's something that's on bucket lists. It’s what a lot of people wanna do," he said. "So they don't think you're a crazy nut, they think ‘Wow, I wish I had the stamina to do a marathon.’"
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Hannah Frishberg
Hannah Frishberg covers New York City arts and culture. Got a tip? Email Hannah at [email protected].
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