FasterSkier previously reported on four boldface names, former Winter Olympians all, who were planning on racing the 2019 New York City Marathon: Brian Gregg, Kikkan Randall, Ida Sargent, and Liz Stephen. Gregg had announced plans to run a 2:40 to 2:45 marathon. The three women were all planning to break 3 hours. All four runners met their goal.
In chronological order:
Brian Gregg logged an official time of 2:44:30 (all times discussed in this article are chip times; in a field of 50,000, it takes even top-1,000 finishers some time to reach the starting line, making the gun time somewhat unfair), meeting his goal with 30 seconds to spare. He was 336th among 30,000-plus men, and 360th overall. He went through the halfway mark in 1:19:37 before slowing somewhat over the final miles.
Kikkan Randall crossed the finish line in 2:55:12, good for 51st woman (out of nearly 23,000 women) and just inside the top thousand overall (990th). She exhibited textbook pacing, recording a half-marathon split of 1:29:09 before speeding up over the final miles. Her slowest mile after the 20-mile mark was mile 22, which took her 6:41. She ran mile 26 in 6:21, and the final 0.2 miles at a 6:18 pace.
Liz Stephen ran nearly the entire race with Randall and Sargent; she and Randall had the same time through mile 25. At that point Randall pressed ahead slightly, putting 25 seconds on her friend and teammate by the finish line. Stephen ran mile 26 in “only” 6:35 en route to finishing in 2:55:37. Stephen was 55th among women and 1,031st overall.
Ida Sargent ran with Randall and Stephen through mile 22 before dropping off the pace slightly. She finished less than two minutes back of Stephen in 2:57:22, good for 75th woman and 1,209th overall.
New York Road Runners reports that the average finishing time for the 2018 NYC Marathon was 4:40:22.
Among Randall’s copious media appearances in the days leading up to Sunday’s race, she appeared on Ari Ofsevit’s BirkieGuide.com Podcast, along with Brian Gregg, early last week. Gregg at one point discussed his transition to running for the marathon buildup, then frankly observed, “Running is hard.” Randall concurred, “Amen!”
Gavin Kentch
Gavin Kentch wrote for FasterSkier from 2016–2022. He has a cat named Marit.
