{"id":163588,"date":"2026-03-14T23:42:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T23:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/163588\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T23:42:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T23:42:43","slug":"fisher-looking-for-a-certain-feeling-at-sundays-nyc-half","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/163588\/","title":{"rendered":"FISHER LOOKING FOR A CERTAIN FEELING AT SUNDAY’S NYC HALF"},"content":{"rendered":"

FISHER LOOKING FOR A CERTAIN FEELING AT SUNDAY\u2019S NYC HALF
By David Monti, @d9monti
(c) 2026\u00a0Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved, used with permission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

NEW YORK (12-Mar) \u2014 On a cloudy and raw morning here with rain spitting down in Lower Manhattan, double-Olympic bronze medalist Grant Fisher addressed a clutch of reporters at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge where, on Sunday, he will have just passed the eight-kilometer mark of the United Airlines NYC Half, America\u2019s largest half-marathon with some 30,000 runners.\u00a0 Fisher, 28, will be making his long-awaited half-marathon debut \u2013and running his first-ever road\u00a0race\u2014 and he tried to put into words what would define a successful\u00a0race\u00a0for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a difficult question,\u201d said Fisher, who is the North American record holder for 10,000m (26:33.84).\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m chasing more of a feeling than a time or a place.\u201d\u00a0 He added: \u201cI\u2019m the rookie now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday\u2019s\u00a0race, the 19th edition, features a superb professional field which boasts 26 Olympians and Paralympians.\u00a0 Ten men \u2013led by defending champion and event record holder, Abel Kipchumba of Kenya (58:07 PB)\u2013 have broken 60 minutes for the half-marathon during their careers.\u00a0 Likely to be up at the front with Fisher will be fellow American Alex Maier (59:23 PB), Canadian Rory Linkletter (59:49), Kenyan Daniel Ebenyo (59:04), Moroccan Mohammed El Youssfi (59:21), Norwegian Sondre Nordstad Moen (59:48), and South African Adriaan Wildschutt (59:13).<\/p>\n

\"\"Grant Fisher at United NYRR Half Presser, photo by Jane Monti for Race Results Weekly, used with permission.<\/p>\n

But unlike most of the world\u2019s top-quality half-marathons, there will be no pacemakers shepherding the leaders from Prospect Park in Brooklyn to Central Park in Manhattan.\u00a0 Like the TCS New York City Marathon, the course is decidedly hard with a series of hills in the first eight kilometers, followed by a flat(ish) section in the middle, and a final five kilometers which is nearly all uphill.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine with Fisher, who sees Sunday\u2019s\u00a0race\u00a0as both an important learning opportunity and a challenging competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the reasons I picked this\u00a0race\u00a0is because time doesn\u2019t matter,\u201d Fisher said.\u00a0 \u201cTechnically, it\u2019s a record-ineligible course, so that wipes one thing from my mind.\u00a0 I can just focus on racing.\u00a0 I\u2019m up against some of the best half-marathoners in the world, people who have way more experience than me.\u201d\u00a0 He continued: \u201cI\u2019m here to learn.\u00a0 I\u2019m here to push myself.\u00a0 I\u2019m ultimately here to figure out if I have a future in this side of the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Joshua Cheptegai takes win, Aregawi Birhanu, silver, Grant Fisher, bronze, photo by World Athletics, August 2, 2024<\/p>\n

With no Olympic Games or World Athletics Championships this year, 2026 is a great year for athletes like Fisher to experiment, especially those from North America who don\u2019t have to worry about either this summer\u2019s Commonwealth Games or European Athletics Championships.\u00a0 Fisher will have plenty of time to recover from the half-marathon before opening his track season which will include the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, in early July (where he will run the two-mile), and the USATF Outdoor Track & Field Championships here in New York at the end of the same month.\u00a0 The extra miles he has put in at high altitude at his winter training base in Flagstaff, Arizona, will help him both on Sunday and later on the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of things which stayed the same,\u201d Fisher said of his training under coach Mike Scannell.\u00a0 \u201cMore volume is kind of the thing.\u00a0 More mileage, longer workouts, focusing on fueling, racing on the roads, new footwear, so a lot of things to change and reconsider.\u00a0 I feel like we\u2019ve had some really good prep, so I\u2019m excited and ready to go.\u00a0 It feels real now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although Fisher confined himself to competing exclusively on the track since wrapping up his NCAA career at Stanford in the spring of 2019, he was an excellent cross country runner during his collegiate career.\u00a0 He took second at the NCAA Championships in 2018, and fifth in both 2017 and 2016.\u00a0 He said he was prepared for the ups and downs of Sunday\u2019s\u00a0race.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been at 7000 feet (2134m) of altitude so even the smallest hill feels pretty aggressive,\u201d Fisher explained.\u00a0 \u201cMy hill workouts are longer.\u00a0 I\u2019m purposely having hilly routes on my easy runs where normally I try to find a flat, very simple run to do.\u201d\u00a0 He continued: \u201cThe hills are all at the start and the end of this course.\u00a0 They\u2019ll beat us up in the beginning.\u00a0 Hopefully I can relax a bit in the middle when we\u2019re going up the east side of the island, then when we get in the park it\u2019s hilly again.\u00a0 I\u2019ll watch how people are reacting and surging and base my moves off of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"In a gutty 5,000m, Grant Fisher held off Abdi Nur with a 3:59 last mile! photo by Chuck Aragon for RunBlogRun<\/p>\n

The closest parallel for Fisher\u2019s move from the track to the roads is when Galen Rupp made his half-marathon debut at the NYC Half in 2010.\u00a0 Like Fisher, he did an indoor track season and came in with a fast 10,000m personal best (27:10.74 at that time).\u00a0 Although he fell in the early stages of the\u00a0race\u00a0and banged his hip, the then 24 year-old ran 1:00:30 and finished third (the course was different then with a 28m elevation loss).\u00a0 He moved to the marathon five years later, eventually winning an Olympic bronze medal in 2016, the Chicago Marathon in 2017, and running a personal best of 2:06:07 (pre supershoes).<\/p>\n

Although Fisher alluded to his potential interest in the New York City Marathon in his comments today, he didn\u2019t want to get ahead of himself.\u00a0 He emphasized that he needed to feel something special after Sunday\u2019s\u00a0race\u00a0before taking another shot at high-level road racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it means I win the\u00a0race\u00a0or I get 30th in the\u00a0race, it will be a feeling that I\u2019m looking for of, is there more to give here, or do I need to stick on the track a little longer?\u201d Fisher told reporters.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s what I\u2019m looking for here.\u00a0 It\u2019s really hard to describe.\u00a0 It\u2019s not a time, it\u2019s not a place.\u00a0 It\u2019s a feeling of competition and a feeling of wanting something more out of myself.\u00a0 I\u2019ll let you know after if I find it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Grant Fisher runs AR for 2 Miles in 8:03.62, photo by Kevin Morris\/Millrose Games<\/p>\n

\u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013 \u2013<\/p>\n

The United Airlines NYC Half will be covered locally in the Tri-State area by ABC New York, Channel 7 with live news cut-ins between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. EDT The professional races will be covered by livestreams on ESPN+,\u00a0abc7ny.com<\/a>, and New York Road Runners digital channels beginning at 7:00 a.m. EDT.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n

Bonus! If you want to see Grant Fisher\u2019s interview from January 2026 in #SocialingtheDistance, please go here: https:\/\/www.runblogrun.com\/2026\/01\/socialingthedistance-episode-139-grant-fisher-olympic-bronze-medalist-10000m-5000m-talks-track.html?swcfpc=1<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America’s first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: “I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself.” Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. <\/p>\n

Theme song: Greg Allman, ” I’m no Angel.”<\/p>\n


\n View all posts
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FISHER LOOKING FOR A CERTAIN FEELING AT SUNDAY\u2019S NYC HALFBy David Monti, @d9monti(c) 2026\u00a0Race Results Weekly, all rights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163589,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[620,48950,2482,9,56,63,65,64,67431],"class_list":["post-163588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-featured","tag-grant-fisher","tag-interviews","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-united-nyc-half-marathon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163588\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}