TCS New York City Marathon course
New York City Marathon course: five boroughs, five bridges
The current NYRR course page says the 2026 marathon runs 26.2 miles through all five New York City boroughs. It starts on Staten Island, crosses the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn, reaches Queens by the Pulaski Bridge, enters Manhattan over the Queensboro Bridge, visits the Bronx via the Willis Avenue Bridge, and returns over the Madison Avenue Bridge before the Fifth Avenue and Central Park finish.
Treat it as a course of changing effort. The bridges and late park roads can make an even-effort race produce uneven mile splits. Use official course markers for elapsed-time checks, keep the opening bridge controlled, and preserve enough effort for Queensboro, Fifth Avenue and Central Park.
Source checked .
Read the course in seven sections
The sequence comes from the current NYRR course page, its linked 2025 official map, and the current street-closure list. The distance bands are planning ranges rather than exact coordinates for a turn or landmark.
| Section | Official-map orientation | RaceIndex planning decision |
|---|---|---|
| Start–2 miles | Staten Island and the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn. | Let effort, space and wind govern the opening climb. Do not force goal pace uphill or chase time on the descent. |
| 2–8 miles | The coloured start routes settle into Brooklyn, including the long Fourth Avenue section. | Find rhythm gradually. Compare cumulative time at a marker after the field has settled instead of correcting mile one immediately. |
| 8–13.1 miles | Lafayette Avenue and Bedford Avenue carry the route through more of Brooklyn before the Pulaski Bridge and halfway. | Keep the crowd energy separate from pace. Complete the planned fuel or fluid check before the quieter bridge work. |
| Halfway–16 miles | A short Queens section through Long Island City leads to the Queensboro Bridge and Manhattan. | Hold a sustainable effort on the bridge. A slower split here does not by itself show that the whole target has failed. |
| 16–20 miles | The route leaves Queensboro for First Avenue and runs north through Manhattan to the Willis Avenue Bridge. | Re-establish form after the descent without surging into the First Avenue crowds. Review fuel before entering the Bronx. |
| 20–24 miles | Willis Avenue reaches the Bronx; Madison Avenue returns to Manhattan, followed by Harlem and the Fifth Avenue approach to Central Park. | Break the work into bridge, street and park-entry targets. Run the late rise by effort and keep the remaining distance visible. |
| 24 miles–finish | Rolling Central Park roads lead to Central Park South and Columbus Circle, then back into the park for the finish. | Expect more changes of grade and direction. Save a final effort for the measured finish rather than an earlier landmark. |
The five bridges are five separate decisions
Verrazzano and Pulaski
Verrazzano begins the race before you have a settled pace reference. Pulaski arrives near halfway after a long Brooklyn section. For both, keep stride controlled and use the next official marker to understand the net time effect.
Queensboro
Queensboro sits around miles 15–16 and has no normal roadside spectator access. Plan for the change from a quieter bridge to the First Avenue crowd, where excitement can disguise a surge.
Willis Avenue and Madison Avenue
These crossings create the brief Bronx visit and the return to Manhattan after mile 20. Their value in a plan is positional: they mark the transition to the late Fifth Avenue and park section.
Those pacing choices are RaceIndex editorial interpretation. The organiser identifies the route and bridges; it does not publish a universal number of seconds to add at any bridge.
How hilly is the New York City Marathon?
New York asks you to climb and descend repeatedly on bridges, then manage further changes of grade near the finish. A flat-road pace target needs room for those changes. NYRR's current page does not publish a total ascent or bridge gradients, and the linked 2025 street map is not an elevation profile.
Before comparing elevation totals, check the route year, start path and measurement method behind each number. For preparation, focus on the sequence: the opening bridge, Queensboro after halfway, the Bronx crossings and the later Fifth Avenue and park section. A single ascent total does not tell you where that work arrives.
“Hilly” is useful preparation shorthand, not a measurement. Plan for repeated climbing and descending, then set finish-time checkpoints with the marathon pace chart.
Your bib controls the start route
The current NYRR start page lists five waves, three colours—blue, orange and pink—and six corrals in each wave. It says the bib gives your wave, colour and corral, and that assignments cannot be changed. Runners may move to a later, slower wave or corral, but not an earlier one.
The linked 2025 map draws all three coloured courses. Do not copy another runner's early turns or choose a bridge level from an old map. Follow the colour on your own bib and the current signs; use the shared route only after the courses converge.
Use the official markers and recheck stations
NYRR currently says mile markers appear every mile, kilometre signs every 5K, and timing mats at the start, every 5K, halfway, mile 20 and the finish. Course clocks correspond to wave 1, while the start page says finish time is net time from crossing the start line. Record cumulative net-time targets rather than trying to make every bridge mile match a flat split.
The current course page lists water and Gatorade at every mile from 3 through 25 except miles 5, 7 and 9, gel depots at miles 12 and 18, and bananas at mile 21. Gel supplies are limited and not guaranteed. The page still contains some explicitly 2025-labelled operational text, so treat this as a provisional plan and confirm the final 2026 runner guide before deciding what to carry.
Prepare for the bridges and late hills
- Practise steady climbing without forcing the flat-road pace, then resume rhythm without sprinting the crest or descent.
- Put rolling terrain late in selected long runs so form and fuelling decisions are familiar after sustained effort.
- Rehearse cumulative 5K and halfway checks. GPS can drift on bridges, through dense streets and when your line is longer than the measured course.
- Decide in advance how you will respond to wind on exposed crossings and to the sudden crowd change after Queensboro.
In My Season, save the exact edition you have entered and add a note to recheck the 2026 map and runner guide when NYRR publishes final race-week instructions.
Sources and review
- NYRR: The Course — current 2026 five-borough statement, markers, station listing and road sequence.
- NYRR: 2025 official course map PDF — linked from the current course page; used as historic route orientation with its year disclosed.
- NYRR: The Start — current wave, colour, corral and net-time instructions.
Prepared by RaceIndex with AI-assisted source research. Official course and start information was checked on 11 September 2026. Route arrangements may change, and the organiser's current map-link mismatch should be resolved before exact 2026 turns are treated as final. Editorial methodology · Report a correction