A record-breaking 30,341 runners raced 13.1 miles from Prospect Park to the iconic Coney Island in the New York Road Runners’ Brooklyn Half Marathon on Saturday.
It was the largest number of participants in the race’s more than 40-year-history, according to New York Road Runners, and more than 20% of them — a total of 6,648 people — were Brooklynites.
Those runners went all out in their home borough. Brooklynite Danica Reinick took first in the nonbinary division, finishing the race in 1:18:17, according to official results; fellow Brooklyn Track Club Member Evan Sherman took fifth place in the men’s division with a time of 1:05:59.
The 2026 RBC Brooklyn Half Marathon was the largest in the history of the race. Photo by Erica Price 
The race ends on the iconic Coney Island boardwalk. Photo by Erica Price
Maurice Evans, a 57-year-old Brooklyn native and a member of the handcycling team Prevailers Racing, placed seventh in the hand cycling division. Evans, who has used a wheelchair for more than 30 years, only started racing about three years ago, he said.
At the time, Evans said he was helping to train other handcyclers at the Axis Project. One day, Penelope Richards — the captain of Prevailers — asked for some help with her own marathon training.
“I was like, ‘OK, alright, that’s what I’m here for,’ not knowing that it was actually a hidden agenda, she actually wanted me to join the team,” Evans said.
He’s been racing ever since then, and has already racked up dozens of medals, he said. This year was his third Brooklyn Half Marathon.
Maurice Evans (left) with teammates from Prevailers Racing. Photo by Erica Price
While most marathoners struggle with the second half of the course — a six-mile stretch down Ocean Parkway without much shade — Evans said the worst part were the hills in Prospect Park.
“I’m trying to get up the hill, and I’m hearing footsteps coming, and that actually encouraged me to push harder,” he said. “In my mind, I don’t want to have a worse time than the people that are running.”
He loved riding on Ocean Parkway and hearing the roar of spectators.
“I’m looking around because most times when I do my races, there’s runners around me, other hand cycles right there. When they’re clapping and all that, I think they’re clapping for me, and they’re clapping for the people behind me,” he laughed. “So to be on Ocean Parkway and to stop and realize, ‘Oh, they’re clapping for me?’”
Runners approach the end of the race. Photo by Erica Price 
Race day conditions were tough, participants said, but there was plenty of water and cold towels to go around. Photo by Erica Price
Where Evans excelled on Ocean Parkway, 35-year-old Naoko Suga was dreading it.
A Long Island City resident, Suga said she played soccer as a teen and started to hate running and cardio training because of it. A few years ago, she set a goal to run a full marathon – but decided to start with a few halves.
She ran one last year, she said, and trained for this year’s RBC Brooklyn Half Marathon for about three months. An employee at a local Hoka running shoe store warned her about the back half of the course, Suga said, and she was “a little nervous.”
Naoko Suga at the end of her first RBC Brooklyn Half Marathon. Photo by Erica Price
But she was buoyed by spectators’ “funny signs” and the sight of the ocean at the end of the race. Suga hopes to run the TCS New York City Marathon someday.
“Even after finishing this half, I was like, ‘Could I do this twice in one one go?’” she said. “I feel like it’ll be challenging, but still I think it’s something I want to do in the next few years.”
Andrea Geurin, a 46-year-old Upper West Sider, has been running since she was a teenager and taking part in NYRR races for years, though this was just her second Brooklyn Half Marathon.
Geurin, who teaches Sports Business at NYU, secured her spot in this year’s race late. She invited someone from Road Runners to speak to her class, she said, and the rep offered an extra entry to the race. Though Geurin hadn’t been training for a half marathon and “wasn’t really in great shape for it,” she didn’t want to pass up the opportunity.
Loved ones cheered for runners finally finishing the 13.1 mile race. Photo by Erica Price 
Spectators waved encouraging signs for runners at the end of the race. Photo by Erica Price
The weather was uncomfortably warm, Geurin said, but less humid and more comfortable than last year.
She paced herself better than she did at her first Brooklyn Half Marathon, where she went out too fast and burned out quickly. It was still tough, Geurin said, but the live entertainment along the course — cheerleaders, live music, spectators — gave her a boost.
“Suddenly, you need that push, you need someone cheering for you,” she said.
At the same time, Road Runners were making regular announcements along the course encouraging runners to slow down, take it all in, and not push themselves in the heat, Geurin said, and handed out cold, wet towels at the finish line.
Andrea Guerin (at right) after completing the race. Photo by Erica Price 
Road Runners volunteers lined up, ready to present runners with their medals. Photo by Erica Price
Last year, 31-year-old Charles Rogers died after collapsing about halfway through the Brooklyn Half. He was the second runner to die at the race since 2022.
Road Runners held a moment of silence before the race in Rogers’ honor, Geurin said, and she later learned that one of his good friends, Kenneth Serrano, was running in his honor.
“I just thought that it was really nice that they were able to honor that person in a really respectful way,” Guerin said.
At the end of the race, most participants celebrated with live music, concessions and activities at the After-Party at Maimonides Park.
Runners hold hands as they cross the finish line. Photo by Erica Price 
Marathoners reunited with their loved ones and celebrated at the after party in Maimonides Park. Photo by Erica Price
But Evans said that while he feels that Road Runners team “do a great job,” he and the other marathoners with disabilities were left in a lurch.
“Us in hand cycles, most races that we do, when we complete the races, we have to keep going for another two or three miles just to drop off our bikes and hand cycles,” he said. “At that moment, if we have motorized chairs, our chairs won’t make it back to the festival.”
There aren’t enough accessible bathrooms at most races, Evans said, and he often has to go out of his way for a facility. It’s frustrating, he said, especially given how much hand cyclists and wheelchair users have to go through to complete a race.
“I think they need to correct that and also I think they need to let us enjoy the festivities, try to find a way that we can enjoy the completion of the race, just like anyone else that’s crossing that finish line,” he said. “Honestly, when I cross that finish line, and can’t make it to [where] everybody else is coming up and stuff like that, it kind of takes away from it.”