Running boom makes race bibs a ‘precious New York city resource’
- The San Juan Daily Star
- Oct 3
- 4 min read
By TALYA MINSBERG
NEW YORK — Nicole Lopez-Watson had set multiple alarms and reminders. She checked her schedule over and over to ensure she would be able to get to her computer by noon.
She was not trying to get presale tickets to see Beyoncé or Taylor Swift. She was hoping to register for a road race in New York City.
“In 2019, I could pick and choose whichever races I wanted, and it was just never an issue,” said Lopez-Watson, who lives in the Bronx. Now, she said, “the anticipation of when the races are going to be released gives me so much anxiety.”
It’s a problem that New York Road Runners, which stages the New York City Marathon and dozens of other races every year, has acknowledged. Thanks to yet another running boom fueled by the pandemic and the newfound popularity of running clubs, getting a race bib for an NYRR event has become a race in itself.
While the popularity of running is not limited to New York City, it may be especially pronounced in a dense city whose marathon has a side-door entrance for locals who complete multiple NYRR races.
In 2019, it took an average of 121 days for an NYRR race to sell out, Rob Simmelkjaer, the organization’s CEO, said in an interview. This year, races have sold out in an average of four days. Some of the most popular races, such as the Brooklyn Half Marathon and the New York City Half Marathon, are in such high demand that the sign-up queues have crashed the NYRR website.
“We think the demand to run our race reflects the quality of the product that we put out there, so we’re happy about that,” Simmelkjaer said. “At the same time, it’s also our biggest challenge, because we know that when 15,000 people want to run a 5,000-person race, 10,000 walk away less than happy.”
The organization opens registration for a few races at a time. That wasn’t an issue as recently as just a few years ago, when runners could search for races a few weeks in advance and sign up depending on their goals or fitness level. It was possible to train for a 10-mile race in the Bronx, a half-marathon on Staten Island or a 1-mile dash down Fifth Avenue without planning months ahead.
Now, registering for a race that is months away resembles a Ticketmaster rollout. Want to get into the presale? Sign up for NYRR “membership plus” for $120 (twice the cost of a standard individual membership). Willing to duke it out with the rest of the general public? Be ready when the floodgates open, expect long queues and click quickly. Hoping to get a second chance at sold-out races? NYRR members can put their names on a standby list.
It’s a good problem to have, Simmelkjaer said, but it’s a problem nonetheless. The organization has talked through possible solutions, including more races, bigger fields, more lottery opportunities, and scheduling more of its free and informal open runs, Simmelkjaer said.
In late August, NYRR announced that it would be instituting drawings for more of its races across the five boroughs. As they have done for years for some of the most popular events, such as the Brooklyn Half Marathon and the New York City Half Marathon, runners will now have to enter their name for a chance to run races like the Manhattan 10K.
Before 2020, Stephen Cox, a runner and coach for the Dashing Whippets, a New York City running club, said he was used to half-marathons selling out, but “a 4-mile race in mid-April was not a hot-ticket item.”
According to a report by Nielsen Sports released in the spring of 2021, 13% of all surveyed runners began running during the pandemic. Twenty-two percent of respondents who were already running before the pandemic said they started running more once it started.
Now, Cox said, “people will come to Dashing Whippets and get excited to sign up for a 5K. We’ll have to tell them, ‘Well, in eight months you may be able to register for another race.’
“For a brand-new runner, it sucks to have to figure out what you are doing months in advance,” he added.
With the increased popularity of running globally has come a spike in marathoning. More people than ever are applying to run a marathon, many of them looking to run a World Marathon Major, a designation reserved for elite marathons in Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, Sydney, Tokyo and, yes, New York.
More than 1.1 million people entered the drawing for the 2026 London Marathon, nearly twice the number — 578,374 — who applied to run the marathon in 2024. While races do not share exactly how they divvy up bibs among lottery applicants, time qualifiers and charity runners, organizers of the London Marathon said that less than 2% of those who entered the lottery earned a bib to run the 2025 race, which 56,640 people finished.
This year, more than 200,000 people applied to run the New York City Marathon on Nov. 2, an increase of 71% from 2019, according to NYRR. About 55,000 people — a mix of lottery winners, charity runners and time qualifiers — completed the race last year.
Unlike the other six marathon majors, the New York marathon has a program that allows local runners to earn entry to the 26.2-mile race. It’s not easy, and it’s not cheap. Runners who complete nine eligible NYRR races and volunteer at one qualifying event in a calendar year — a program known as 9+1 — earn guaranteed entry into the next year’s marathon. That is, if they can successfully sign up for those races.
There’s a cap on the number of people who can race in events under agreements with the New York City Parks Department. Adding more races to the calendar isn’t always possible, thanks to permitting restrictions and other events taking place in the city.
The lotteries are a start, some runners say, and a more equitable way to earn entry into races. In turn, however, it could become even harder to for runners to complete the 9+1 program.
“Races have become a very precious New York City resource,” Simmelkjaer said.
Comments