In this section, I'll give you some basic info about the marathon; just enough so you can follow what I'm talking about on these pages. For more detailed info, go to the NYC Marathon Homepage at www.nycmarathon.org .
Like all marathons, the NYC Marathon is 26.2 miles long. The race covers all five boroughs of New York (Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx) though most of it is in Brooklyn and Manhattan. The race begins at Fort Wadsworth in Staten Island (at the foot of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge) and ends in Central Park.
There are now about 40,000 runners in the marathon. They keep raising the number of runners. In 2008, they began doing a wave start. Runners were divided into three waves. The fastest runners began at 9:40AM. The second wave (my wave) began at 10AM. And the third wave began at 10:20AM. I heard they aim to have 50,000 runners in 2009. The winner finishes with a time of about 2:10 +/- 5 minutes.
There are actually 3 starting areas; blue, orange and green (it used to be blue, red and green before ING started sponsoring the race).
By the way, the right half of the bridge's lower deck is used for traffic. The three groups are kept separate for a few miles but by mile 8, we are all running together.