NYC Marathon 2026 Start Time: Race Day Is Here, and New Jersey Runners Catch the Early Buses

Race day has arrived. The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon runs Sunday, November 1 across the five boroughs, marking the 50th anniversary of the five-borough course first run on October 24, 1976, according to the race guide published by USA TODAY and read by this desk. The first start is the men's professional wheelchair division at 8:00 a.m. Eastern, followed by the women's wheelchair division at 8:02, handcycles and select athletes with disabilities at 8:22, the professional women at 8:35 and the professional men at 9:05, with the five amateur waves going off from 9:10 to 11:30 a.m.

For New Jersey runners, the race started hours earlier. The official New Jersey bus leaves MetLife Stadium Parking Lot K in East Rutherford, with Wave 1 and Wave 2 departures in the 5:00 to 5:30 a.m. window, about a 60-minute ride to the Staten Island start, and runners are told to arrive 15 minutes before their assigned departure, according to the New York Road Runners transportation summary read by this desk. A separate central-Jersey bus from Rahway Train Station checks in at 5:45 a.m. and departs at 6:00 a.m. sharp, arriving at Fort Wadsworth at about 6:40 a.m. Anyone driving to the Staten Island drop-off instead had to be there before the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge closed to all traffic at 7 a.m., and there is no parking at the start.

The weather is cooperating. Conditions for race day were expected to reach a high near 61 with little chance of precipitation, and the station's live feed agrees: a Sunday high of 61.4 degrees with a 1 percent precipitation chance. Runners can be live-tracked in the official race app, and anyone who finishes before 10 p.m. Eastern receives a finisher medal. One caution for anyone setting an alarm clock overnight: daylight saving time ended at 2 a.m., so race-morning times are Eastern Standard Time.