Published November 5, 2026 08:31AM
The men’s winner of the 2026 New York City Marathon, Andreas Almgren of Sweden, is 31. He averaged about 4:49 per mile, running a negative split on his way to a 2:06:01 finish, completing the first half in 1:04:04 (4:53 per mile), and the second in 1:01:57 (4:43 per mile); his average heart rate ranged from 156 bpm to 178 bpm (thank you, Coros, for this insight into his supreme fitness) on his way to beating the 5,822 other men in his 30-34 age group.
Almgren’s time, we can say with objectivity, is fast. Like, super fast. But not course-record fast. That would be 2:04:58 — run by Ethiopian athlete Tamirat Tola in 2023. Almgren’s time puts him fourth on the course’s all-time fastest performances list, which, most would say, is pretty impressive.
But is that what makes a “good” New York City Marathon time? In a field of 61,062 runners, 42 wheelchair racers, and 43 hand cyclists for a grand total of 61,147 finishers, a “good” time is hard to quantify.
I mean, who’s to say that the dude breaking it down to Nelly’s “Hot in Here,” or the delightful runners reclaiming their lives, or the athletes who found peace in long miles aren’t subjectively having a good (or the best) time at the New York City Marathon?
Still, we’re kind of obsessed with data, and the numbers are just right there, asking to be crunched. So we decided to break it down and answer the question: What’s a good New York City Marathon time in 2026?
About the Data
This analysis is based on the times of 61,062 finishing runners, pulled from the New York Road Runners 2026 New York City Marathon page. The chart below shows the age group and gender breakdown for these runners, and adds up to 61,035. There are 27 entrants who opted to make their demographic information private. These finishing times are added into the overall totals but are removed from age group analysis.
New York City Marathon 2026 Entrants By Age Group and Gender
Age GroupMenWomenNonbinaryUnder 3512,739
15,2118635-394,6673,3662540-443,9492,9612045-493,2662,442850-542,9062,115855-592,1071,437760-641,365863265-69602338170-74259127075-798726080+33120Total31,98028,898157A Good Marathon Time Versus a Good New York City Marathon Time?
First, some context. When our data expert Brian Rock analyzed a giant dataset of marathon times in the United States, he pulled about 500,000 marathon results from 2024.
To talk about “good” times, he chose to use the median, which is what we’ll also rely on for the New York City Marathon, as the median is less skewed by outliers than the mean, which can be distorted by uneven distribution (i.e., Almgren’s 2:06 versus the last official finisher’s time of 13:18:01).
The median is a kind of average where half of all results are faster and half of all results are slower. It’s exactly in the middle. For marathons across the U.S., the median is about 4:22, according to Rock’s research. In New York in 2026, the median time is 4:28:55.
Median New York City Marathon Times Vs. Median Nationwide Marathon Times
NYC Marathon 2026National NYC vs. NationalOverall4:28:554:22about 7 min slowerMen4:14:234:10about 4 min slowerWomen4:43:484:38about 6 minutes slowerNonbinary4:28:43not reported*–
*The nonbinary category is a small sample size and should be treated as a snapshot. Right now, it’s not offered as an option at all races, and it was not included in the 2024 nationwide marathon statistical analysis. We’ll update this as more races add it.
Why is the New York City Marathon slower? The obvious reason is the course profile. New York is a challenging course, with a series of bridges that are just steady, grueling climbs rather than gentle rollers. It’s one of the hilliest of all the majors, but it has no net downhill payback, meaning every step you go down is matched by one going up.
World Major MarathonTotal ClimbNet ChangeSydney1,027 ft272 ft net downhill
New York City810 ftabout even (-14 ft)Boston815 ft460 ft net downhillLondon419 ft112 ft net downhillChicago243 ftabout evenBerlin241 ftabout evenTokyo198 ft124 ft net downhill
Even the elites will tell you that New York is not a PR course — so the swifter amateur runners might be opting for Chicago or Boston, if they are in the States, to reach their PR goals.
New York’s reputation goes the other way too: The fun-loving vibe of NYC plays a part in attracting a certain kind of mid- and back-of-the-pack runner. It’s a huge race that gets a lot of beginners, bucket-list-checkers, and people looking for a party atmosphere through 26.2 miles. This means a lot of 5-hour or more marathoners. For example, two 90-year-old men finished; 465 people took longer than 8 hours.
What the Median Time Means for You
Now we know for a fact that New York is harder and slower than the other marathons. So it might be more worthwhile to compare your time to others running on the same course. The median is a good starting point for this.
Then, as you know, overall numbers are pretty useless in running. We have to break it down by gender and age. Still, that doesn’t give you much information because if the median for a 44-year-old man is 4:10, does that make a finishing time of 4:05 “good”?
So, we’ll follow Rock’s lead and look at a statistic called the interquartile range, which is the middle 50% of finishers, between the 25th and 75th percentiles.
Put simply: Are you quicker than the top 25%? Slower than the bottom? We’re not saying that makes your time “good” or “not good,” but rather above or below average.
Typical Range of New York City Marathon Times for Men in 2026
Age GroupTop 25%MedianBottom 25%Under 353:36:204:05:394:44:4235-393:35:504:07:344:49:0740-443:36:294:10:104:51:2045-493:40:244:15:364:56:5250-543:47:364:21:03
5:02:1455-593:56:484:33:145:16:0460-644:12:294:51:395:35:2665-694:23:395:11:446:00:4270-744:49:105:37:536:38:3275-795:38:246:47:327:47:5280+6:36:397:19:168:26:07Typical Range of New York City Marathon Times for Women in 2026
Age GroupTop 25%MedianBottom 25%Under 354:04:17
4:37:035:16:0635-394:09:164:45:545:33:1440-444:08:024:46:305:33:1645-494:09:024:48:185:36:4450-544:18:284:56:095:44:4055-594:11:58*4:59:105:49:2760-644:29:475:13:236:07:1665-694:42:475:35:086:26:0470-745:00:545:40:516:38:4275-796:07:327:00:527:48:3080+7:04:307:55:228:44:14
*Yes, that’s right: the fastest quarter of women 55–59 outran their 50–54 counterparts.
Typical Range of New York City Marathon Times for Nonbinary Runners in 2026
Age GroupTop 25%MedianBottom 25%Under 353:44:204:42:505:28:2535-393:45:26
4:18:534:58:4340-443:54:484:20:095:17:5545-493:42:403:52:114:11:0050-544:44:384:57:085:24:4455-593:42:474:40:145:44:26Overall Time Distribution
Another way to look at what a good time is at the New York City Marathon is to assess how many runners finish at a given time and how that distribution is spread out from the fastest to the slowest times.
Here’s what’s interesting: that 4:00 spike, which we see in national data, is just as pronounced at the New York City Marathon. Overall, the most finishers came in between 3:50 and 3:59:59, with 4,903 finishers. And the elapsed-time minute with the most finishers was 3:59:xx, with 603 finish times in that range.
In the five minutes before 4:00, 2,721 people finished, compared to 1,919 who finished in the five minutes after. The goal to break 4:00 is alive and well.
You can see in the graph that both the men’s and women’s highest peaks are in that 3:58-3:59 range, with 2% of women under 35 and 2.6% of men finishing in that range. The under-35 men also have a jump just before 3:30, with 1.9% of finishers coming in between 3:28 and 3:29.
Photo: Derek CallAre NYC Marathoners Getting Faster? 2016 vs. 2026
Let’s crack open the history books. In 2016, there were 51,388 runners compared to 2026’s 61,062. Looking at the median finishing times, the top of the field got faster, with the number of sub-3 marathoners nearly doubling. This might be thanks to shoes, better fueling, smarter training — or a combination of the three.
We can probably give thanks to the latest running boom and running’s more inclusive nature for the jump in participants, especially in the back of the pack, with the number of +6-hour marathoners rising 62%.
2016 vs. 2026
20162026ChangeRunning Finishers51,38861,062+19%Median Time4:31:294:28:552.5 minutes fasterAverage Time4:37:384:37:46Basically the sameSub-3 Hour Finishers901 (1.8%)1,747 (2.9%) Count nearly doubled; share up ~60%+6-Hour Finishers3,810 (7.4%)6,176 (10.1%)Count up 62%; share up ~a thirdWhat Country Is Fastest? A Just-for-Fun Comparison.
The New York City Marathon is known for attracting a huge international field. In 2026, there were 153 countries represented, making up 25.7% of race participants.
So who was faster — the U.S. or the rest of the world? The international median was 4:19, while Americans ran 4:32.
There are many explanations for this, but the most compelling has to do with gender. We know that gender plays a big role in performance, and men of similar ability will finish faster than women of similar ability.
When you look at the breakdown of gender running the New York City Marathon, only 38% of the international runners were women versus 51% for Americans.
When it comes to the fastest countries, this is the list by median. To keep the rankings fair, we only included countries with at least 100 finishers, which left 30 countries in the mix. If you’re wondering about age, the median ages for the top five countries all fall between 42 and 48. But if you factor in gender, you’ll see that the speedy countries are stacked with men.
Top 5 Fastest Countries at the New York City Marathon
RankCountryMedian Time# of Finishers% Men1Colombia3:53:3517168%2Spain4:00:1049270%3Ireland4:02:3621864%4Brazil4:05:1261857%5Hong Kong4:05:4711464%
When we strip out the men and look only at women’s times, using the same 100-finisher minimum, Brazil’s women are the fastest (a median of 4:16:28), followed closely by Spain’s (4:17:51). For comparison, the median for all women in the race was 4:43:48. Colombia’s women were quicker still, with a median of 4:08:05. But only 54 of them finished — too few for our criteria to make the list.
So, What’s a Good New York City Marathon Time?
By now, you probably know what we’re going to tell you: A good marathon time is relative. It depends on many factors.
Plus, your time at one particular race is not the end of the story. For every race like Almgren’s, there’s a story like Conner Mantz, who, despite being one of the fittest men on earth and holding the American marathon record, had a tough time this go-around. (Could you imagine if your “bad” race time was 2:07:27?)
We hope, however, that you can use the medians, interquartile ranges, and distribution to set your own goals — even if that means getting fast enough to not have to deal with the sea of humans finishing just before 4 hours.