Your Odds of Getting Into the New York City Marathon and Ways to Gain Entry

Yesterday was the lottery drawing for the TCS New York City Marathon 2018.  A lot of runners from all over the world want to run the New York City Marathon and unfortunately only a small amount get picked each year (roughly 16% of those who apply).  Here are the ways to get a chance to run the New York City Marathon: 

• Enter the lottery
• Run for Team for Kids
• Run for another charity partner
• Live abroad, and book your trip through an NYRR international travel partner
• Have 15+ NYC Marathons under your belt
• Qualify based on time
• Claim a deferred entry
• Participate in NYRR’s 9+1 (or 9+$1K) Program
• Be an elite runner

To quote Runner’s World “For the 2017 New York City Marathon, 98,247 hopeful runners applied for the drawing—16,211 were accepted. That’s a 16.5 percent rate, making the New York City Marathon more selective than Georgetown University, but not quite as selective as Berkeley.”  Those odds aren’t great.  

I’m sure the odds for 2018 were similar.  I saw a lot of disappointed runners on social media yesterday (me included), but that won’t stop us from trying year after year.  Congrats to those lucky enough to gain entry.  It is a race you will never forget! Want to come back to this? Pin it for later!