The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon is Sunday, November 1, 2026. The 26.2 mile course starts on Staten Island at the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, runs through all five boroughs and finishes in Central Park. It is the largest marathon in the world, with more than 55,000 finishers, and it airs nationally on ESPN2 with local coverage on WABC-TV in New York, plus streaming on the ESPN app. Start times, the course and how to watch are below.
2026 NYC Marathon at a Glance
| Detail | 2026 race |
|---|---|
| Date | Sunday, November 1, 2026 |
| First start | About 8 a.m. ET, professional wheelchair division |
| Professional women | About 8:35 a.m. ET |
| Professional men | About 9:05 a.m. ET |
| Mass start waves | From about 9:10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. ET, in five waves |
| Start | Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island, across the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge |
| Finish | Central Park, near Tavern on the Green |
| TV | ESPN2 nationally, WABC-TV Channel 7 in New York, ESPN app streaming |
| Field | More than 55,000 runners |
The Course, Borough by Borough
| Miles | Where |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 | Staten Island: the start on the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge, the biggest climb of the day |
| 2 to 13 | Brooklyn: Fourth Avenue through Bay Ridge, Sunset Park and Park Slope, then Williamsburg and Greenpoint |
| 13 to 14 | Queens: over the Pulaski Bridge at the halfway point, through Long Island City |
| 15 to 16 | The Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, famously silent, then the wall of noise on First Avenue |
| 16 to 20 | Manhattan: First Avenue north through the Upper East Side and East Harlem |
| 20 to 21 | The Bronx: a short loop over the Willis Avenue Bridge and back over the Madison Avenue Bridge |
| 21 to 26.2 | Manhattan: Fifth Avenue past Marcus Garvey Park, the climb along Central Park, then into the park and the finish |
How to Watch and Track Runners
ESPN2 carries the professional races from the start through the finish, with the ESPN app streaming the same feed. In New York, WABC-TV has the full morning. To follow a specific runner, the TCS New York City Marathon app tracks every participant by name or bib number with split times at every 5K. The elite fields are announced by New York Road Runners in October, and start times can shift by a few minutes each year, so confirm on race week.
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Race details are from New York Road Runners.