The last time Marty Granoff ran the New York City Marathon was in 1983, 43 years ago. Now, the 90-year-old is preparing to do it again, for the sixth time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought at best I’d be in a home for the elderly, where they’re feeding you with a spoon,\u201d he told NY1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granoff is one of just two runners in their 90s among nearly 60,000 people expected to run the race this coming Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody says you’re crazy. Everybody,” Granoff said with a laugh. “There’s not one person that says, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ ‘No, you’re nuts. What are you, crazy? You’re going to kill yourself.’ Well, if I’m going to kill myself, it’s a good way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
Granoff said he has logged more than 2,500 miles over the past 14 months to prepare.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think mindset is a large part of it,” he said. “I love living life. I love everything about it.”<\/p>\n
His coach, Sean Fortune, says he has never trained anyone in their 90s before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSince November of last year, when he committed to the race, he’s been walking at least seven miles a day, seven days a week, and his long runs built up to him doing a peak of 23 miles in one day,\u201d Granoff said. \u201cSemi-elite or local elites don’t even do 23 sometimes. They usually peak around 22 [miles].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fortune says he programs Granoff\u2019s training the same way he would program any of his other clients, explaining he is \u201cnot constrained by his age.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe hardest part has been getting him to like, rest,\u201d Fortune said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There has only been one 90-plus New York City Marathon finisher since 2014. Ninety-one-year-old Koichi Kitabatake from Japan crossed the finish line in 2025 in about seven hours and 25 minutes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 90-plus course record was set by a 91-year-old German man named Josef Galia in 1989, completing the race in six hours, 43 minutes and 29 seconds. He also became the oldest person to finish the New York City Marathon two years later, at 93.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granoff will be running with a posse of people who he says will help him get to the finish line. Among those running with him are three generations of Granoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s the coolest thing ever, just to be able to do it with my son and grandson. Wow,\u201d Granoff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granoff is relying on a professional marathon runner to pace him during the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s going to, like a pendulum, he’s going to be there at 17:30. And I’m just going to follow him around,\u201d Granoff said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Granoff says his motto for this race is: \u201cFinish. Finish. Finish.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The last time Marty Granoff ran the New York City Marathon was in 1983, 43 years ago. Now,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[2296,11101,25,3691,231,75,9,24,55,54,12,56,319,27,200],"class_list":["post-385551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-emma-barnett","tag-human-interest","tag-manhattan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news","tag-ny","tag-sports","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385551","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=385551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}