The New York City Half Marathon Has a Star-Studded Lineup

Final December, Sam Grotewold, who leads the skilled working program at New York Highway Runners, began scratching out a listing of individuals he hoped to lure to the New York Metropolis Half Marathon.

Three months later — and three years after the final time practically 25,000 folks completed this race — the sector for Sunday’s New York Metropolis Half is absurdly stacked.

By no means in Grotewold’s wildest goals did he suppose the group would come with the next: Des Linden, the 2018 Boston Marathon champion; Galen Rupp, a two-time Olympic medalist and the winner of the 2017 Chicago Marathon and the 2016 and 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials marathons; Rhonex Kipruto of Kenya, the 10-kilometer street world-record holder; Sara Corridor, who set the American file within the half-marathon in January and has reached the rostrum at each the London and Chicago marathons; Emma Bates, who completed second within the Chicago Marathon in October; and Ben True, who gained the New York Metropolis Half in 2018.

“You have got your concepts, that this may be an attention-grabbing story to inform or particular person to have within the race,” Grotewold stated in a current interview. “We had 250 to 300 credible certified athletes who threw their hat within the ring. Lots of people needed to run.”

The group will probably be on the beginning line Sunday for the return of one of many nation’s largest half-marathons. The 2020 New York Metropolis Half was one of many first main races to fall to the coronavirus pandemic. Final yr’s race was additionally canceled.

The New York Metropolis Half has loads of promoting factors for elite and beginner runners alike. Eye-popping views alongside the journey from Prospect Park in Brooklyn to Central Park in Manhattan, particularly as runners cross the East River over the Manhattan Bridge. Massive crowds. Crisp, however usually not frigid, late winter climate. And this yr organizers in London once more shifted their marathon to the autumn, clearing the calendar for some prime runners.

However that solely partly explains its attraction to elite runners, and the advantages that severe middle-of-the-pack folks can acquire from it, particularly those that are working one of many massive spring marathons, like Boston, which is able to happen on April 18.

Certainly, it’s one in every of a handful of half-marathons the place the most important names can acquire a five-figure look payment, which is very interesting when many are simply getting again into the swing of normal participation in main races.

Linden, who plans to run Boston in April like all the time, stated the half has served completely different functions relying on the yr.

“I’ve used it as a health gauge after placing in months of labor, simply seeing the place I’m at and if there’s something I take away that factors to what we are able to tweak over the past month of coaching,” Linden stated. “And this yr it’s actually simply a chance to get in a race, one thing I haven’t accomplished in awhile.”

In fact, there are many runners at each stage for whom the race is the top of their spring seasons.

Rupp, the highest American marathoner of his era, shouldn’t be working a spring marathon. He has not often raced in New York, however he’s planning to run the half, after which focus all his power and the subsequent 4 months on preparations for the marathon on the observe and discipline world championships this summer season.

“He was perhaps the primary athlete we reached out to,” Grotewold stated. “It match together with his schedule.”

It additionally helped that Rupp is not coached by Alberto Salazar, the disgraced former coach of the Nike Oregon Venture. Salazar is serving a four-year suspension for ​​doping violations that included trafficking in testosterone and tampering with the doping management course of. Earlier this yr, an arbitrator upheld a lifetime ban that america Middle for SafeSport issued for an alleged sexual assault of an athlete. Salazar stated he had “by no means engaged in any type of inappropriate sexual contact or sexual misconduct.”

Then there’s Corridor, the Energizer bunny of elite street racing. Corridor, who has made a behavior of piling up distance races, completed eighth within the Tokyo Marathon on March 6 with a time of two hours 22 minutes 56 seconds. She plans to run the New York Metropolis Half, then the Boston Marathon, in all probability the New York Mini 10K in June, and the marathon on the world championships.

Corridor stated in an interview final week that the primary lure of the New York Metropolis Half was “the enjoyable of it.” She was unhappy to have missed racing in 2020, and in 2021 she examined optimistic for the coronavirus, which disrupted her coaching and racing schedule. Additionally, she has by no means run this race, despite the fact that she has notched a number of different high-profile wins in New York.

“It’s a nice prep for Boston, simply competing over a hilly course,” stated Corridor, who shouldn’t be centered on a specific time. “I’m simply centered on competing greater than the clock.”

So what can a middle-of-the-pack runner be taught from the elites about how a half-marathon matches into a bigger coaching schedule?

Ben Rosario, who leads the group of runners from Hoka NAZ Elite in Arizona, stated anybody working the half-marathon as a precursor to a full marathon later within the spring mustn’t again off from a marathon coaching plan. Whereas that in all probability eliminates the chance to run a quick time for 13.1 miles, a slower half-marathon can function a useful coaching stimulus.

For instance, in 2020, Aliphine Tuliamuk ran the Houston Half Marathon in preparation for the U.S. Olympic trials marathon weeks later. The week of the half, Tuliamuk did a 15×1-mile exercise.

“She solely acquired nineteenth within the race, however 1 hour and 9 seconds on drained legs wasn’t too shabby,” Rosario stated.

Six weeks later, Tuliamuk gained the Olympic trials marathon.