Runners make their way past Greenwood Cemetery during the New York City Marathon (photo by twi-ny/mdr)
Sunday, November 6, free, 8:30 am
Multiple locations throughout all five boroughs
www.nycmarathon.org
One of the grandest races of them all, the New York City Marathon takes place on Sunday, November 6, as Ethiopia’s Gebregziabher Gebremariam and Kenya’s Edna Ngeringwony Kiplagat seek to defend their titles as last year’s winners. They will be among more than forty-seven thousand expected participants from around the globe making their way through all five boroughs, beginning in Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island, setting off in waves beginning with the wheelchair division at 8:30, the handcycle category at 8:55, and then three more waves at 9:40, 10:10, and 10:40, following the 26.2-mile route over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, past Greenwood Cemetery and the Williamsburg Savings Bank, taking the Pulaski Bridge into Queens and the Edward I. Koch Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, heading north into Harlem and the Bronx, then using the Madison Avenue Bridge to return to Manhattan and head for the finish line in Central Park. The men’s and women’s winners receive $130,000 each. You can watch the race on television or in person, of course, as well as track up to ten runners using a brand-new app. The 2011 race is dedicated to nine-time champion Grete Waitz of Norway, who died of cancer this past April at the age of fifty-seven.