Photos: Beautiful Marathon Sunday For 53627 Amazing People - Gothamist

Perfect fall weather and huge cheering crowds made the best block party of the year, the 49th TCS NYC Marathon, even better this time around.

The event welcomed 53,627 people to participate in the race on Sunday, and everybody’s a winner who even attempts to run for so many hours and miles in a row, let alone finish the damn thing (especially with those hills!). The people who actually won this year were Joyciline Jepkosgei of Kenya for the women, with a time of 2:22:38; and Geoffrey Kamworor, also from Kenya, who clocked in at 2:08:13, for the men. Manuela Schar of Switzerland won the women's wheelchair race, at 1:44:20, her third consecutive win; and American Daniel Romanchuk eked out a victory for the men's wheelchair race, with a time of 1:37:24, just a second ahead of last year's winner Marcel Hug.

For the rest of the 50,000+ who started the day in Staten Island and, if all went according to plan, ended it in Central Park, the race was about personal achievement and empowerment and a love of running and endorphins and god knows what else. As several multi-marathoners told me as they staggered out of the park near the finish line, “New York is hard, man.”

There was so much joy along the way though! In Bay Ridge and Fort Greene, Long Island City and Harlem (and the dozens of other neighborhoods), spectators gave out orange slices, Halloween candy, bananas, pretzels, paper towels for nose blowing, and even straight-up handfuls of salt. Bands played every few blocks or so, the choir took their usual place aboard the steps of the Emmanuel Baptist Church, and local taverns blasted music. High fives, silly signs, day-drinking, and anxiously searching for a loved one in the race to give them a huge hug have all become NYC Marathon traditions. Not to mention all those New Yorkers who tried to cross the street yesterday.

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A complete list of results can be found here, and scroll through the images above to get a small taste of what the largest marathon on Earth feels like. And the New York Road Runners Club is accepting early drawing to run in the 50th TCS NYC Marathon next year—entry fees range from $255 to $358.

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