Running the Big Apple

2024 TCS New York City Marathon Race Recap

Photo by author. I captured this on the Staten Island ferry on our commute to the start line.

November 3, 2024, 5:58 a.m.

Text received: In lobby

Text replied: On our way

“Come on,” I said to my husband. “She’s in the lobby waiting for us.”

From the 8th floor of the Voco Times Square South Hotel, my husband and I gathered our belongings and headed to the elevator. Once aboard, another young man jumped on. Two floors down, a blond woman boarded.

We all glanced at each other at some point. No one spoke except to welcome each new passenger. No one knew why the others were on the elevator.

But we did.

It was race day. And not just any race day. It was the 2024 TCS New York City Marathon. Each person on that elevator had a story of how they got there. The race boasted an average of fifty-thousand runners each year, one of the largest, if not the largest, marathon in the world.

As a marathoner, I’ve watched the New York City marathon on television multiple times. In 2017, I cried when I witnessed Shalane Flanagan become the first American woman to capture the top prize in the women’s division since Mikki Gorman last held the title in 1977. I tuned in, amazed by the crowds, the course, and the Big Apple. This was something that seemed so unattainable to me.

Reach for the Stars

Why was it out of reach for me?

Although close to fifty thousand people each year participate in this race, it’s still hard to get into. That sounds like a lot of people, and it is. It sounds like so many that there should be room for anyone who wants to participate. But, when you factor in that close to 165,000 people applied to get in, it’s a miracle for those of us who made it.

There are only a few ways to get into it. Those ways include being a professional runner, qualifying, lottery, charity bib, participating in the 9+1 program in which you run other New York Road Runners (NYRR)races, or virtual participation the previous year.

Being a slower runner, I only had so many options to get in. My husband, a faster runner and repeated Boston qualifier, would have many chances. However, when I put the 2023 race on my radar, he didn’t have a qualifying NYC time. To qualify, he had to run a qualifying time in 2022 and he did not since he’d been injured the previous year. If we wanted to participate in 2023, we had to get in the lottery or run for charity.

Charity participation requires runners to raise a significant amount of money. You can’t participate unless you meet the fund raising requirements. From what I’d been told by other runners, raising the money was like having another job. New York’s fundraising requirements weren’t as ambitious as Boston’s, and I have nothing against raising money for charity. But for me to market myself and raise money for any particular cause, well, I can say I just don’t think anyone likes me enough to pitch in for the effort. So, charity participation didn’t seem like a viable way to go.

Lottery it was.

Except it wasn’t. We didn’t get in. We looked ahead to 2024.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

If we could get into the 2023 virtual New York City marathon, we’d have guaranteed entry for the in-person race in 2024. If accepted into the virtual, participants had to run a 26.2 course sometime between October 28 and November 5, 2023, and upload it to the event on Strava, a sports app. Registration took place in the middle of June 2023. It was first come, first served. It was not mentioned how many virtual participants would be accepted. Registration opened at noon and closed when it was full. Each registrant had to have an online account. You couldn’t log in and register multiple people.

This could be tricky. But we both had our account with NYRR)from applying for the lottery. So, I just had to make sure I could register us both before it filled. I would register myself first, and then log in as my husband. For the 2024 race, he could still get in on a qualifying time if he ran a qualifying time in 2023. I was the long shot. Because of this, I would try to get myself in first. If it closed before I could get him in, he’d run a qualifying half or full marathon that fall to get in.

It was dog-eat-dog, to say the least. I logged in at the appointed time and was immediately placed in line in a queue. I watched the virtual placeholder march across the screen until at last it said I was in! It took less than a minute to register myself for the virtual race. Once completed, I logged out and logged back in as my husband. I was prepared to be put back in the queue, but as luck would have it, I got right in! I registered him with ease.

Now, it was time to wait to see if we were accepted. The system said you would see a pending charge against your card but that didn’t mean you got in. You wouldn’t know for sure until you got an email stating so.

Was There Virtually Any Chance?

Image provided by author.

An hour and a half later, my email arrived. I was in!! A couple of minutes later, my husband’s email arrived. He was in, too!

Whew! Now all we had to do was run a marathon, 26. 2 miles, between October 28th and November 5th, 2023 and upload it to Strava as a virtual participant to receive credit.

One Down, One to Go!

Image by author.

On October 28, 2023 we participated in the CNO Indianapolis Monumental Marathon and both met the virtual requirement. Once our runs were saved to our Garmin’s, the activities loaded to our Strava accounts and we received confirmations that our virtual results were accepted. We were IN!

Now, to stay healthy for a year, train and get there.

That’s nerve-wracking in itself. You never know when you might get injured or something else unexpected in life happens. It’s called life for a reason. But, no sense in dwelling on that. We started our training in July as normal and plowed through it.

The Main Event

And now, on that elevator, with two other strangers, we made our way to the lobby of the Voco Times Square South hotel to meet our other running friend who happened to get into the race via lottery that year.

When we reached the ground level, we stepped off and our friend greeted us. She also greeted the blond woman who accompanied us on the elevator. Turns out, they’d met in a Facebook group and agreed to meet up to travel to the start line together. The more the merrier! We were off!

Getting There is Half the Fun

Image provided by author. My husband and me waiting for the subway.

So, let me explain a little about how this travel process works in the New York City marathon. The race traverses through all five boroughs of New York City. It starts on Staten Island, moves over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into Brooklyn, then into Queens, followed by the Bronx, and into Manhattan to finish in Central Park.

Image provided by author. Riding the Staten Island ferry.

Getting to the start line is a feat. Runners sign up for public transportation and must allow at least ninety minutes to reach the start line. We walked to the subway. We took the subway to South Ferry station and boarded the Staten Island Ferry. Once on Staten Island, a bus transported us to Fort Wadsworth to the athlete’s village. Waiting was involved at each stop. We left the hotel just after 6 a.m. and arrived at Fort Wadsworth just after 9 a.m.

Before I forget, I must add that the ferry ride was incredible. I got to see the Statue of Liberty on our way (see the photo at the top). When we arrived at Staten Island and disembarked from the ferry, employees of the ferry were giving us a standing ovation, cheering and ringing bells for us. Wow! I was NOT expecting that! I got choked up. I felt like I was doing something really important and I hadn’t even started yet! This race is a HUGE deal to New Yorkers.

Hurry Up and Wait

The athlete’s village at Fort Wadsworth were split into three sections correlating with the corrals in each wave: blue, orange, and pink. The blue and orange corrals started on top of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on either side of the road. The pink corral started on the lower level. There were five waves total, each wave had just under twelve thousand participants. My husband and I were in wave three which had a start time of 10:20 a.m. My friend from home was in the orange corral, but she was in wave four starting at 10:55.

Once I arrived at my athlete’s village, I didn’t have much time left before I had to line up for the race. I had fifteen minutes from the time my corral opened at 9:45 a.m. until it closed at 10:00 a.m. I got in my corral and we stood and waited until it was time to approach the start line. Standing in a crowded corral for twenty minutes in upper forty/low fifty-degree weather sounds like it would be miserable and long. But the time went fast.

At each wave start line, “New York, New York” by Frank Sinatra was blaring through the speakers. A cannon boom signaled the start. The sound of the cannon in the distance reminded me of the movie, The Hunger Games…“A tribute has fallen.” Crazy things pop in my head at the oddest times!

We were instructed to start moving towards the bridge. Once at the start line, Frank sang, the cannon boomed, and off we went across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Off and Running

The first half of the race was a blur. I never checked my watch to see what my pace was. I wasn’t there for a time. However, since daylight saving time ended that morning, it would be getting dark at 4:49 p.m. EST. I wanted to finish around three o’clock, if possible. It was supposed to take about thirty minutes to exit the race after crossing the finish line. I had to find my husband and get on the subway back to our room. I wanted to get back before dark, if possible.

The halfway mark was at the Pulaski Bridge. I felt pretty good and thought to myself you just have to do this one more time. I’ve had this thought before during other marathons and never dwelled on it for long. If it takes root, it can have a negative impact. Distance running is so mental that anything, and I mean anything, can cause a runner to hit a wall and affect their race. It isn’t always the twenty-mile marker when marathoners hit a wall. I’ve hit the wall at mile fourteen before. Believe me, it’s a struggle to have twelve more miles ahead of you when you hit a wall that early.

Onward and Upward!

Bye-bye negative thoughts!

I was looking forward to getting to the Queensboro Bridge. It was supposed to be the most difficult of the bridges on the course. No spectators were permitted on the bridge so it was a period of quiet time. All you could hear were runners breathing and shoes hitting the pavement. Once I reached the end of it, I’d be at the sixteen-mile marker. I would be well over the hump.

I wasn’t worried about the elevation. I trained for that. But, once I got there, I realized what a pain in the ass it was. It was long and nagging. The ceiling appeared to be descending just ahead, so I assumed I was about to hit the crest. But it seemed like every time I got to where the road should crest, it kept going up.

Hang in there. Don’t stop. It has to end sometime. Just keep running.

And it did. I hit the famous “wall of sound” when I got to the bottom. We veered to the left and made another left under the bridge and continued onto First Avenue.

If I thought the Queensboro Bridge was tedious, First Avenue had something special in store for me! This ended up being the most monotonous part of the race for me. I could see forever down the road but the end of it seemed nowhere in sight. The crowds were insane! Police had to hold them back at times.

Somewhere around mile eighteen (the timing of this is cloudy to me now), I saw a digital clock from a local business. It was 1:28 p.m. My wheels started turning. I knew if I kept plugging away I’d make it to the finish when I wanted to. I was on target to make that happen if I kept plugging away.

20 Mile Marker

Eventually, I arrived at the Willis Avenue Bridge to hit mile twenty. My left foot had felt crampy for a couple of miles. Coming off the Willis Avenue Bridge, it started to annoy me. I wanted to walk so badly and finally gave in to the urge for just a few strides at mile twenty-one. I remembered the clock at mile eighteen and wanted to finish around three o’clock. I knew I couldn’t keep walking and achieve my goal.

All you have to do is keep running. Don’t walk, run!

That was enough to do the trick. I took off again and didn’t look back. No more walking.

5th avenue

24–Enter Central Park. This was my favorite part of the race. I’m a country girl and being in the park was like being back home in familiar territory, except with crowds and spectators. I started veering downhill for a nice break in the course.

25–exit Central Park to Columbus Circle for a short time.

Re-enter Central Park…

I saw the beautiful mile 26 marker and knew the finish was just beyond.

And…there it was. The finish line!

I did it!! I ran my first World Major Marathon and earned my first star (Abbott World Major marathons — that’s another story!) I finished at 2:56 p.m. I finished before the three o’clock-hour. My official race time was 4:31:35.

A Memory Now

Now, two weeks later, the entire weekend is very surreal to me. I worked for seventeen months to run the TCS New York City Marathon. It was over in four hours, thirty-one minutes, and thirty-five seconds, the blink of an eye. Did this happen to someone else? Will I get to experience another world’s major at any other time?

I don’t know. I know what I dream of. I know what I’m willing to work for. I know to never say never. Anything is possible. I am possible.

Image provide by author. I swear I’m never taking the jacket off!

This year’s TCS New York City Marathon broke its record. 55,646 runners completed the race, making it the largest marathon ever.

I was so lucky to be one of them.

Wendy Slates — I am a wife, mother , and running enthusiast navigating mid-life. You can find me at medium.com/@wendyslates.