New York Marathon - Just Around the Corner

The start on the Verrazano Bridge

OK, a few day out from this Fall's big race. I wish I could say lots of area runners will be out there besides myself but most of these folks are pragmatic and ran last week's Albuquerque Duke City Marathon which is a comfortable 60min drive away. I know I'll be running with the esteemed Bryan Boots out of Boulder, CO. This will be his debut at New York after two straight running 2hr 54min and 2hr 57min at Boston and a 9^th place finish at this year's Steamboat Run Rabbit Run 50M; Santa Fe's Steve Rogers is running; Santa Fe pro Caroline Rotich is confirmed in the women's elite race, and that's pretty much all I've got.

A couple quick notes about the New York City Marathon - the race traverses all five of New York's Boroughs, Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and back again through Manhattan finish in Central Park West. The full course map can be found here (.pdf).

According to an article in yesterday's Wall Street Journal there are a projected 47,000 finishers for Sunday's event. This compares with 44,700 finishers last year and 43,250 finishers in 2009. The next biggest US marathon is Chicago with 36,159 finishers in 2010 according to marathonguide.com. Interestingly there are 60,000 registered runners for Sunday's race with a full 15,000 expected to withdraw before race day due to injury. That's a 25% attrition rate from training related injury. I can empathize with this, but man, that's a fairly high figure.

Hell of an elite field put together for this race. In the mens' field there are:

  - Returning New York champions from 2010 and 2009
  - The 2011 and 2010 London Marathon champions
  - This year's Boston champion
  - Two former Fukuoka champions
  - Multiple Olympic marathon medalists
  - Multiple World Champ marathon medalists including a two-time champ
  - A former World-XC Champion
  - Several elite US runners

In the womens' elite field there are:

  - Last year's 3rd, 4th, 5th, 8th, and 10th place NYC finishers
  - This year's London champion
  - This year's Boston champion
  - A former World-XC Champion
  - A former European-XC Champion
  - Several US Olympians

Other notables in the field include; US Olympic skating champion Apolo Anton Ohno; Two time NYC champion German Silva of Mexico; Former 800m world record holder Wilson Kipketer of Denmark; Former mile world record holder Steve Cram of Britain.

The race will be streaming live at Universal Sports.com. Athlete tracking via the web will be available at the NYC race website here.

Related NYC Marathon Posts:

  - Preparing for New York, (Oct 20^th)
  - Fall Marathon Training II, (Aug 15^th)
  - Building the Base for a Fall Marathon, (July 19^th)

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