Ben True spent years training alone. New Hampshire is home for him, and it’s not a running mecca like Boulder or Flagstaff that draws big-name elite runners.
In recent months, True decided to mix things up. After spreading word among friends that he would be willing to go so far as to pay someone to relocate and train with him, True, 35, now has two full-time running buddies — Dan Curts and Fred Huxham, both 25 — who have used True to feed their own ambitions in the sport.
With a small community behind him, True is making his marathon debut, nearly five months after he narrowly missed an Olympic berth in the 10,000 meters when he finished fourth at the United States trials. And while he has guarded against putting too much pressure on himself, he considers New York something of a test. A test, he said, to see whether he is “cut out for the marathon.” And a test to determine whether his future in the sport is financially viable.
He is facing a loaded field including the likes of Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, a four-time Olympic medalist and five-time world champion. True has never raced with a wristwatch, he said, but he plans to wear one for the marathon to protect himself from himself. He has some familiarity with the course, and knows how runners can surge at various points of the race, like Mile 16 off the Queensboro Bridge.
“I’m somebody who thrives on latching onto somebody and never letting go,” True said. “But if Bekele drops a 4:30 mile coming off the bridge, I probably shouldn’t try to match him.”
reporting from the marathon
Adriana Martinez, 44 of Yonkers, New York. “I feel great. It’s my first marathon and it’s my birthday. It feels so special in so many ways.”
reporting from the marathon
Josh Cassidy, who finished fourth in the men’s wheelchair race for his best finish yet, said the race was “surprisingly really great.” He competed in Boston but took time off for the birth of his son two weeks ago and didn’t have high expectations for today’s race. “It is so good to be back in New York. I missed it.”
In 2019, Kenenisa Bekele came within two seconds of breaking Eliud Kipchoge’s world record, completing the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours 1 minute 41 seconds. At 39, the Ethiopian star has come to the New York City Marathon for the first time, to prove he can still win anywhere.
“I will be in a very good position,” Bekele said of his chances.
Indeed. He is just about the fastest marathoner alive, and so much faster than everyone else in the race, even if this marathon does not necessarily favor the fleetest in the field.
He refuses to accept the idea that runners approaching their 40th birthday are not supposed to even think about winning one of the six world marathon majors. He said he believes he can find those two seconds he left on the course in Berlin in 2019 and break Kipchoge’s world record.
“I can go faster, and I can win races,” he said. “If I go faster I will win the race.”
reporting from the marathon
The lead women have hit the halfway point, with Annie Frisbie continuing at the front. Her fellow Americans Molly Seidel, Kellyn Taylor and Laura Thweatt are also among the leaders. Their estimated finish time is 2:25:26.
reporting from the marathon
The lead pack has now thinned to nine — including the four Americans.
reporting from the marathon
Just now, as Molly Seidel led the women through 17 miles, she gave a little wave to the crowd. But within seconds, three other athletes, including Peres Jepchirchir of Kenya, the gold medalist from Tokyo, tried to surge past her. Seidel had to counter the move to keep up with them. Those four have separated themselves, at least for now. The race is on.
reporting from the marathon
The men’s field has been stringing out as various contenders take turns at the front and push the pace. Through 15 kilometers, the equivalent of just over 9 miles, two men have surged to the front: Mohamed Reda El Aaraby of Morocco and Eyob Faniel of Italy, who have a 23-second gap on six others, including Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia. Ben True of the United States, who wanted to be cautious with his pace, already has a lot of ground to make up.
reporting from the marathon
Mohamed Reda El Aaraby and Eyob Faniel continue to press forward in the men’s race, building a 42-second lead on everyone else as they approach the halfway point. Both are gambling big, as more seasoned and accomplished runners behind them bide their time. The two leaders are averaging a 4:53 per mile pace.
Madison de Rozario of Australia won her first New York City Marathon women’s wheelchair title, turning a race that was tight early on into a one-woman show in Manhattan and the Bronx.
De Rozario finished in 1 hour 51 minutes 1 second.
Unlike the men’s wheelchair race, the women’s division was a dogfight between Manuela Schar, 36, the defending champion from Switzerland, Tatyana McFadden, 32, a five-time New York City champion, and de Rozario, 27.
It was de Rozario’s third time racing in the New York City Marathon.
At the halfway point, McFadden poked ahead by about five seconds. McFadden pushed up the Queensboro Bridge spanning Queens and Manhattan, with de Rozario a few seconds behind. Schar fell much further back.
But after McFadden hit the peak of the bridge and began to glide down, de Rozario sped past her. De Rozario then pulled ahead for good on First Avenue and continued to build her lead.
De Rozario won the gold medal in the marathon at this year’s Tokyo Paralympic Games, edging out Schar by one second. She also won gold in the 800 meters in a Paralympic record time, and bronze in the 1,500 meters.
She won the London Marathon in 2018.
reporting from the marathon
Xenia Roman, 36, dressed as a purple unicorn to cheer on the runners that pass by her. She chose the outfit because “it’s warm and cozy and because I think it might cheer people up while they’re running by.”
It’s not uncommon for elite runners to take as many as six weeks off from running after a grueling marathon.
Then there is Shalane Flanagan, 40, the New York City Marathon champion in 2017, who did the opposite. With all six of the world’s major marathons packed into as many weeks this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic, Flanagan saw an opportunity to do something extraordinary. She decided to run them all — Berlin, London, Chicago, Boston, Tokyo and New York — in under three hours each.
Flanagan, who is retired from professional running, traveled roughly 10,000 miles round-trip with her toddler son for Berlin and London. She ran Chicago and Boston on back-to-back days. Organizers ultimately canceled the Tokyo race, but Flanagan still ran a marathon on her own near her home in Oregon two weeks ago to make up for it. Her slowest time was in Chicago, which she completed in 2 hours 46 minutes 39 seconds. She completed three of the races in under 2:40, including an extremely fast 2:35:04 in London.
Now New York is her final test. Flanagan, a coach with Nike’s Bowerman Track Club in Portland who has had two reconstructive knee surgeries, said she is healthy and ready to finish off a quest that seemed ridiculous when she first went public with it.
Ridiculous, that is, to everyone except her.
reporting from the marathon
Robin Gelfenbien has a “damn you are sexy” sign for today’s race. She says one of the elite runners passing by “turned around like full 180 with her head. And I was like, Girl, you gonna fall, stay focused on this race.” She added, “I think it’s always nice to make people laugh as they’re going through something that’s so grueling.”
Tayshia Adams, a co-host and previous star of “The Bachelorette,” was among the runners waiting for the Staten Island Ferry to shuttle them to the starting line of the New York City Marathon.
Adams is running her first marathon, and it turns out that starring in “The Bachelorette” has helped prepare her for the marathon.
“My nerves are at bay right now,” Adams, 31, said. “I’m not too crazy nervous, and it’s just about taking a leap of faith and putting yourself out there and hoping for good results.”
Adams will be joined in the race by her fiancé Zac Clark, 37, who she became engaged to on season 16 of the show. Clark is running the race for the seventh time.
Matt James and Tyler Cameron, also of the “Bachelor” and “Bachelorette” franchise, are also running on Sunday.
On Sunday, Sept. 13, 1970, the day before his senior year began at Long Island City High School, Larry Trachtenberg was one of 127 athletes who lined up in Central Park to run the first New York City Marathon. He was one of 55 finishers.
Trachtenberg, now 67, is now on the course running the marathon again (this time on the modern course that runs through all five boroughs).
He is the lone runner who ran the inaugural New York City Marathon who is also racing in this year’s event, the marathon’s 50th running.
“I wouldn’t go through all of this for Boston or London or whatever,” Trachtenberg said over the phone from his home in Eugene, Ore. “It’s just that it’s New York.”
For New York City Marathon runners, it’s a journey just to get to the starting line. And for all the fans, volunteers and police, there’s a lot of work to do before the first wave goes off.
reporting from the marathon
Rykiel Levine, an emergency room resident at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, came out as a medical volunteer with her fellow residents. It is her first year volunteering. “It means that the world is going back to normal, which is really exciting, and it’s really nice to see the city coming together and connecting and making us feel like this pandemic may be behind us,” she said.
Marcel Hug of Switzerland, known as the “Silver Bullet,” continued his stellar 2021 by winning his fourth New York City Marathon, dominating the men’s wheelchair race.
Hug led from the start, finishing in 1 hour 31 minutes 24 seconds.
Hug, 35, won four gold medals at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this summer, including his second consecutive gold in the marathon. After Tokyo, he won the Berlin, London and Boston marathons and finished in second place in the Chicago Marathon just behind one of his biggest rivals, Daniel Romanchuk of the United States.
Hug, who is using a new, high-tech chair, lost to Romanchuk by one second in New York City in 2019, after winning in 2017. He held off Kurt Fearnley of Australia, the course record-holder, by six one-hundreds of a second in 2016. In 2013, Hug beat Ernst van Dyk by five-tenths of a second.
Hug faced no such drama on Sunday. He held a three-minute lead over David Weir of Britain after 20 kilometers and passed the halfway point at 43:52, and was on course to smash the course record by nearly two minutes. His lead ballooned to more than three minutes as he sped up First Avenue. That lead grew to more than six minutes by the finish.
reporting from the marathon
The finish line is waiting for the first runners. There won’t be a family reunion area this year due to Coronavirus restrictions. Earlier, it was quiet here except for the clanging of medals being hung in preparation for the arrival of runners.
reporting from the marathon
Molly Seidel has gotten a lot of attention (and deservedly so), but a couple of other fellow Wisconsinites have been right at the front of the women’s field so far: Annie Frisbie, an Iowa State graduate who runs for the Minnesota Distance Elite team, and Kellyn Taylor, who placed eighth at the U.S. Olympic marathon trials in 2020. All three are among the leaders as the women go through 10 kilometers in 35:02.
reporting from the marathon
Leila Harris is an art historian who lives along the route in Bay Ridge. She and her husband, Patrick Carney, brought two-year-old Reid to watch his first marathon.
“I love the energy of marathon day. I think it would have been unsettling last year,” Harris said.
Halfway through the women’s wheelchair race, Tatyana McFadden, the five-time race champion, poked ahead by five seconds over Manuela Schar and Madison de Rozario.
Heading into Manhattan, de Rozario passes McFadden as they glide off the bridge and is sprinting away. Schar is a distant third place now.
reporting from the marathon
And 25 minutes after the elite women navigated across the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge and into Brooklyn, the professional men have started their race. Keep an eye on Kenenisa Bekele, an Ethiopian who is one of the most decorated distance runners ever — and was awarded the No. 1 race bib.
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