The Four Bridges: New York's Second Half, Crossing by Crossing
The New York City Marathon crosses five bridges. Four of them come after the halfway point. That piece of geography decides more of this race than any training block a runner brings to Staten Island.
The course crosses them in this order: the Verrazzano-Narrows in the first mile, the Pulaski at 13.1, the Queensboro at 16, the Willis Avenue at 20, and the Madison Avenue at 21. You make four separate decisions between the Pulaski and the Madison, each about how much the first half cost.
A study of 190,228 finishers at New York found that runners ran the second half slower than the first, from the winners down to the four-hour pack (Santos-Lozano et al., 2014). That pattern holds across the whole field, and the bridge sequence is the reason.
The First Half Is a Trap With Good Manners
Brooklyn is flat and loud. You pass miles 8 through 14 in neighborhoods that turn out in numbers usually reserved for stadiums. Noise lowers perceived effort without lowering actual effort. Runners reach the Pulaski Bridge at 13.1 feeling controlled, and the watch agrees with them.
Nothing about the first half feels expensive. That is the design. The course front-loads its easy running and back-loads its hard running, so the halfway split arrives before the bill does.
The Pulaski is the first place the terrain changes, and it is also the worst place on the course to negotiate with yourself. Take a halfway split on a climb and decide you are behind, and you have already started the wrong race.
Bridge by Bridge
The Pulaski, 13.1. A short climb over Newtown Creek from Brooklyn into Queens. Halfway on a bridge is a strange place to be, and the instinct is to make a decision there. The Pulaski is a crossing, not a checkpoint. Run it to effort, crest it calm, and keep the first half's promise to the second.
The Queensboro, 16. The defining feature of the New York course. A 0.7-mile climb with no spectators, and after six miles of Brooklyn noise the silence is disorienting. Runners who race New York describe it as the moment the race changes register.
The bridge lands on First Avenue, which carries some of the loudest crowds anywhere on the course. A runner who spent the first half gets a crowd injection at the exact moment the legs start paying for it. The top of the Queensboro is the real halfway point of this race.
The Willis Avenue, 20. The crossing into the Bronx. Short, and it arrives when glycogen math has started to matter. This stretch is the quietest part of the race.
Quiet invites the urge to push. The Willis Avenue is not where a marathon is won. It is a place to spend nothing.
The Madison Avenue, 21. The return to Manhattan and the last of the four. Runners cross it into Harlem with five miles left. Fifth Avenue and the rolling hills of Central Park come next, where Cat Hill and Harlem Hill arrive at the moment runners are most depleted. The Madison is the last bridge, and the last chance to be honest about how much the first half took.
The Rule That Applies to All Four
You make the same decision at each bridge on this course, and you can make it before race day. Climb to effort, not to pace. Recover on the descent instead of chasing the split the downhill hands you. The bridge grades are steep enough that pace becomes a poor guide, and the descents are shallow enough that chasing speed on them costs more than it earns (Abbiss & Laursen, 2008).
The Verrazzano opening sets the terms. Its descent is the fastest mile most runners run all day, and it is the one that costs the most. Run 15 to 20 seconds per mile slower than goal on the opening climb, and hold the same discipline on the way down. A runner who takes the descent hard gives back in Brooklyn what the bridge handed them.
Late October Adds Wind and Cold
The bridges sit exposed. Wind crosses the Queensboro and the Willis Avenue with nothing to break it. Late-October mornings in New York run cold enough that ears and hands suffer before the legs do. Our Threshold Hat handles those miles with a wind-blocking front panel and a fleece-lined band.
Coverage matters most in the Verrazzano start corral, where runners stand for an hour before the gun. Nothing shelters the crossings.
The plan fits on the back of a race bib. Run the first half slow enough that the four bridges cost you nothing you cannot pay. Get over the Madison with the race still in front of you. Let the last five miles be the fastest of the day.
References
- Santos-Lozano A, Collado PS, Foster C, Lucia A, Garatachea N. "Influence of sex and level on marathon pacing strategy: Insights from the New York City race." International Journal of Sports Medicine. 2014;35(11):933-938. DOI: 10.1055/s-0034-1367048
- Abbiss CR, Laursen PB. "Describing and understanding pacing strategies during athletic competition." Sports Medicine. 2008;38(3):239-252. DOI: 10.2165/00007256-200838030-00004
- "New York City Marathon." Wikipedia. Course description and bridge sequence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Marathon