26.2 at 50

The New York City Marathon’s 50th running is on Sunday. This is the story of one race, five boroughs, dozens of champions and over a million hopeful runners.

The New York City Marathon is one of the world’s largest road races and most democratic. Olympic medalists and world champions run the same 26.2 miles as weekend warriors. There have been 1,283,005 total finishers over 49 runnings, and thousands of photographs captured by scores of photographers for The New York Times.

The runners pulse through the five boroughs, and through the images here. Their thighs feel stabbingly sore, their hamstrings twang like banjos, and their toenails darken like the hastening afternoon sky. But the vast majority are triumphant in reaching the finish line, having challenged the limits of their endurance and experienced New York’s loud and welcoming and eccentric embrace. Where else can you expect to be high-fived by a cat?

Hours before the start, thousands of runners begin loading buses and ferries and travel from Manhattan to the start at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island. They are extremely hydrated and nervous by this point, but there are lines of portable toilets available at the start and on the course. Unlike the annual international marathon in Pyongyang, North Korea, however, New York will not offer a chance to make an official pit stop in a karaoke bar.