On the 6th November 2022, I ran my fourth in-person New York City Marathon having taken part in the 2017, 2018 and 2019 races and fifth if you want to count the 2020 virtual running. I will link to my race recaps for those years below: It was the running of that 2020 virtual marathon which secured me the place in the in-person race this year. Luckily I was one of the 1,000 virtual runners who ran for a non-complimentary race entry in 2021. Ultimately, the US travel ban prevented me from running in 2021 but I was able to cancel that entry and transfer over to 2022 which leads us to this post.

• New York City Marathon 2017 Race Recap
• New York City Marathon 2018 Race Recap
• New York City Marathon 2019 Race Recap
• Virtual New York City Marathon 2020 Recap

29 days prior to the 2022 New York City Marathon I had raced in the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawai’i so I wasn’t going into this race with any hopes or aspirations of running a PB or even running close to it, my goal was to soak up that New York City Marathon atmosphere, which truly is a race like no other. Every year I have run this race, the crowd never fails to amaze me. They say it is like a 26.2 mile block party through the five boroughs and this year I was coming to party!

The logistics of race day make for a very early start. My alarm was set for 4:30am, time to grab a coffee in the hotel room and make my way to the Public Library to catch the Mid-Town bus. It is a 1 hour bus journey from Manhattan to Staten Island. There is the option of taking the ferry but I have always favoured the bus, just my personal opinion.

So typically, this is where I would list the clothes I had packed to keep warm whilst waiting for the bus and waiting at Fort Wadsworth. Being at the beginning of November it can get quite cold for standing around for a few hours, good marathon running weather mind. During my three previous runnings, it had only rained in 2017 the other two years were clear and sunny with the temperatures for the three years ranging from 11’c – 13’c.

This year, it was 20’c at 5:30am on the walk to the bus line, it felt very odd walking through the streets of New York wearing shorts and a singlet in November but that just sums up the weird weather of 2022.

I walked by the lines of buses waiting to take the near 50,000 runners on the journey to the start line.

The line for the bus was big and snacked up and down 42nd street alongside Bryant Park. Whilst it was long, it was constantly moving and I think in total, I was there for 45mins before boarding the bus.

For some reason, the bus took a lot longer than normal this year. We were stuck in traffic crossing the Verrazano bridge. What usually took an hour to go from A to B took at least 90 minutes this year.

That waiting on the bus meant things were a little rushed once I got off. There was only 1 hour until the start corrals for Wave 1 were due to close. I had to get through security, which in fairness was a breeze and took 5mins tops. Then find the Blue start area (I had been in Green for 2017 & 2018 and Orange in 2019).

Really the only thing I was concerned about was having time to get some hot water to mix up my porridge oats leaving sufficient time for that to settle in the stomach before starting the race. I like to eat breakfast an hour before a race or long run and I was cutting it fine today.

One good thing about the start areas for the New York City Marathon is the food and drink options. They provide water, coffee, hot water, hot chocolate, Gatorade, bananas, bagels… they’ve got you sorted, but remember, don’t get carried away and try something you haven’t tried before those long training runs. What I like to do is bring two pots of porridge oats and use the hot water to mix these up and eat my breakfast in the start village as opposed to eating it in the hotel 4-5 hours earlier.

I did eat breakfast 40mins before the race start time and as I was finishing off the second pot the call went out that the wave 1 corrals were now open. that meant we had 20 minutes to get into the corrals before being walked over to the bridge.

I do like these corrals, I don’t know how many people are in each corral but I’d hedge a bet at 500, not that many really but each corral has a line of toilets which means the queues for these are a lot smaller than out in the main start village. Always a good tip to use these before heading out onto the bridge as there are none out there.

Once the rope drops and you are walked out to the bridge, that corral ordering goes out the window, it’s a free for all trying to get the best start position possible or pushing to get close to your particular pace group. For me, I was chilled this year, I had no stress about finding the 3 hour group, I was just going to run to feel and have some fun

 Mile 1 – 7: 7:32, 6:20, 7:00, 6:59, 7:02, 7:02, 7:01

Having said I was running for fun today I still found myself getting frustrated with the number of people in front of me running so slowly during that first mile. I don’t know where they came from but it felt as though a bunch of runners who, let’s put it politely, you would expect to be in Wave 1, Corral A or B. The pace they were running was more akin to a 5-6 hour marathon, not the 2:30 would you expect. This caused quite a bottleneck, probably a blessing in disguise in a way as this had the effect of slowing my first mile pace. Running the first mile of New York City slow is a very wise move given this is all uphill and the biggest climb of the whole course.

Having gone over the peak of the bridge and cleared the slower “A Corral” runners I just let the legs roll through the second mile all the way down the other side of the bridge, more than making up for the slower first mile.

At this point I figured I would settle into a 7:00min/mi pace, roughly 10secs slower than my previous marathon but something I felt comfortable at. I knew it wasn’t a sustainable pace with the Ironman still in the legs and the warm and humid weather.

Mile 8 – 14: 7:13, 7:08, 7:06, 7:22, 7:09, 7:14, 7:36

After pacing miles 3 – 7 more or less bang on that 7min a mile, the pace started to slow at mile 8. At that point, I was thinking this could end up being a very long and hard day. If you are starting to feel it 8 miles in, 26.2 miles is a long way off right now.

I rallied a little and held a fairly consistent pace. I made the decision to walk through the water station at mile 11 so I could fill my bottle with Gatorade. My thinking here was that 15-20 seconds “lost” filling the bottle would pay back in the longer run by ensuring I was staying on top of the hydration.

For me, I often struggle with mile 13 on this race. I am not sure whether it is the realisation that we are leaving the vibrant and loud crowds of Brooklyn behind us, the realisation that damn, I have got to run all that again and the second half is a whole different ball game in NYC or it’s probably just the Pulaski Bridge, not a big uphill but the most significant climb since mile 1 and this is one of the few sections where the crowds are sparse and it gets rather quiet.

Pulaski Bridge is done, now into Queens and into the second half of this race. Although in reality, this race doesn’t get going until mile 16. This also plays on my mind around this portion of the race, it’s like a transition zone between the high of Brooklyn (can you tell I love running through Brooklyn?) and the impending pain of the Queensboro Bridge between mile 15.5 – 16.5.

This “transition zone” was also where my pace really dropped back, the combination of that little climb over the Pulaski Bridge, the humidity and the legs just generally not being recovered from last month’s Ironman was really biting now.

Mile 15 – 20: 8:23, 7:57, 8:32, 8:02, 8:18, 9:58

Coming into mile 15 knowing the next climb was imminent and off the back of mile 14 where my legs had started shouting, why are you running this distance again 29 days after the last painful effort. This was where I stopped and walked a little of the way up the Queensboro Bridge. I was sipping on the Gatorade in my bottle, and this was starting to get low even though I had filled it with 500ml of Gatorade at mile 11.

The Queensboro Bridge is one of those New York City marathon experiences people often tell you about when you are coming here for the first time. The bridge itself is about a mile long, running on the lower deck it is dark, sometimes windy going over the river and also oh so quiet. Similar to the Verrazano bridge at the start but you don’t notice that silence then, you come from the buzz of the start, Frank Sinatra playing in the distance and the adrenaline of what you are about to experience buzzing through the body (plus the battle through the slower runners) all take your mind off the quiet of mile 1 – 2.

Mile 15 – 16 & a half is different. By this point you have been exposed to the noise and hype of running through Brooklyn and Queens, you have grown to depend on that crowd support pushing you down the street without really realising it. Then you come to this dark, quiet bridge where the uphill drag feels neverending. Sounds grim, doesn’t it?

Then you crest the bridge, begin to head back down the other side and in the distance, you can hear a noise which gets louder as you get closer with each step. You turn left off the bridge and down the steep off-ramp into Manhattan for the first time and you are greeted by a wall of noise. Back to that New York City marathon block party!

Running up First Avenue has had varying levels of success for me. In 2017 and 2018 I flew up here riding on the high of that crowd support (I later paid for that big time in 2017), 2019 had been a struggle physically and mentally. Today was a 2019 kinda day. I knew it before I even stepped foot on First Ave so I had accepted that I will be walking the water stations from here on in.

That walking through the water stations to re-hydrate continued through to the finish but it worked well for me, I was able to run the miles between the water stations at the usual pace through to mile 20.

I ended up chatting with a guy also walking through the mile 20 water station and he didn’t get running straight after like I had been, I decided to walk with him a little longer and just talk shop. Sometimes it’s those memories made chatting to other runners which stick with you more than how I may have saved a couple of minutes if I had run on without him.

Mile 21 – 26.2: 8:11, 8:16, 8:41, 8:41, 8:12, 8:22

For the last 5 miles we are heading back South into Manhattan again, this is another of those stretches where you are fully aware of the hill at mile 23/24 and the rollers through Central Park. Today, I wasn’t too fussed about the hill on 5th Ave, I was around easy pace so it was just a steady jog up there.

Once into Central Park you know you are going to make it to the finish, not that it was in doubt today but you can never count your chickens when running the marathon distance, there is a long way for something to go wrong.

These final 2 miles through the park are some of my favourite miles of the race, always amazing crowds lining the path and in places coming in tight giving you a feel for what the Tour De France riders experience on those mountain roads.

The heat, humidity and struggles from mile 8 onwards are all forgotten as soon as you turn right back into Centra Park at Columbus Circle. This is where you find that little extra kick, the spring in your step (sorta) comes back and you charge up to the finish line.

This year was the first time I got one of those blue ponchos, I would usually do the bag drop when you used to leave via a different exit and not get a poncho. This year (and 2021), everyone got a poncho, the irony of the one year I get the poncho it is far too warm to be wearing one of those. It will still come in handy either back in the UK or wearing at the start village in Boston next April.

Brief roundup:

So a brief round up… Given I didn’t have a time goal it is easy to say it all went to plan. The hottest New York Marathon I have run, this was the third slowest of the four and my slowest marathon since Chicago Marathon 2018. Despite all that I finished in the top 5.35%, the highest finish position in any major marathon. So I guess I struggled a little less than others or maybe those hot triathlons over the summer and in Hawai’i did give some payback.

I have got to say though, of the four years I have raced the streets of New York, the crowds were insane this year! The warmer weather and lifting of COVID restrictions brought everyone out, bigger, louder, and better. That’s New York in three words.