NYC Marathon 2026 Start Times: Waves, Pro Races and How Race Day Unfolds Across the Five Boroughs

The biggest marathon on the planet takes over New York City on Sunday. The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon covers 26.2 miles from Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island to a finish in Central Park, crossing five bridges and all five boroughs in front of roughly two million spectators. Last year's race set a world record with 59,226 finishers, and around 60,000 participants are expected this year for the 50th anniversary of the marathon's first running as a true all-city event.

Race day starts long before most of the field moves. The men's professional wheelchair race goes at 8:00 a.m., the women's wheelchair race at 8:02, handcycles and select athletes with disabilities at 8:22, the professional women at 8:35 and the professional men at 9:05. The five mass-participation waves follow from Fort Wadsworth at 9:10, 9:45, 10:20, 10:55 and 11:30 a.m. A runner's wave and corral are printed on the bib, and a runner who misses a start can drop back to a later wave but cannot move up to an earlier one.

Getting to Staten Island is the first race of the day. Runners use the transport New York Road Runners assigned them, printed on the bib: the Staten Island Ferry from Whitehall Terminal in Lower Manhattan followed by a shuttle bus, a Midtown bus from the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 41st Street, or a New Jersey bus from MetLife Stadium. The start is split into color-coded villages at Fort Wadsworth, where runners wait with coffee, bagels and more than a thousand toilets before their corral closes.

One stretch of the course is new in a way that will outlast Sunday. NYRR has confirmed that the Bronx reroute — a loop through Mott Haven — is permanent for 2026 and beyond, the course's first official change in 15 years. The course time limit is eight hours and thirty minutes from the start, and the Central Park finish line closes at 10:00 p.m.