A Tribute to the New York Marathon
11.11.22
“[Fred Lebow] led his foot soldiers through the five boroughs of New York, clearing the way with a bullhorn, a pair of arms that worked like semaphores, and even a smattering of Yiddish to liven up a crowd. ‘I am in charge,’ Lebow said more than once yesterday. ‘That is why I am here.’
As the cannon erupted to start the race, Lebow spotted a few ordinary runners who had infiltrated the front ranks, and he roared: ‘You hot-doggers, get back. You won’t last to the other side of the bridge. I know who you are, you hot doggers.’”
— George Vecsey, “A Modern Major General,” The New York Times
When Fred Lebow first proposed hosting the inaugural New York City marathon in Central Park, city officials were appalled. The New York Road Runners — a motley collection of self-described “freaks” and “offbeat people,” — were known for flashing the Bronx in their underwear and stopping at the halfway mark for a swig of brandy.
“Central Park wasn’t built for running,” recalled Henry Stern, former NYC Parks Commissioner. “It was built for horses and carriages being drawn around. The idea of people running around the park — in what appears to be their underwear or less — would have been impossible. People didn’t go out of their houses looking like that.”
Lebow, a Holocaust survivor turned garment industry rip-off artist, changed all that. A European interloper known for his signature beard, leather jacket, and red Mercedes, Lebow singlehandedly upended the face of long-distance running. “He had a mélange and savoir faire,” said iconic marathoner Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to infiltrate the Boston Marathon. “He had that European kind of quality of kindness and attractiveness that a lot of American men didn’t have.”
Even Howard Rubenstein, legendary public relations expert known as the “dean of damage control,” felt he had something to learn from him: “He’s such a sensational publicist he could go into rivalry with me and my firm,” said Rubenstein in 1984. “The problem is, he’s always adamant in his position. He attacks everything as if it were a marathon. With government people, bankers and sponsors, everything is not a marathon. Some things are just a walk around the block.”
In the wake of the 51st New York Marathon — an event that saw “Fred’s Team” make history by surpassing $100 million in total funds raised for cancer research — we discuss how the New York Marathon transformed the sport of long-distance running from a fringe community populated by granola-crunching extremists into a full-scale commercial venture that democratized running and gave rise to some of the largest mega-events in sport tourism history.
How Fred Lebow Commercialized Running
Lebow convinced city officials to let him host the marathon in Central Park by financing the enterprise himself. “The total cost was $99,000. I paid for it myself,” said Lebow. “I bought fifteen watches and a very gaudy trophy. I didn’t know what to do, how to put on a marathon.”
Gary Muhrche, the first winner of the marathon, almost missed the race after a late night out responding to firefighter calls. Out of a field of 127 competitors (and 55 finishers), Muhrche won with a time of 2:31:38, a full twenty-three minutes slower than this year’s male winner. “The course then didn’t resemble the five-borough course used today. Back then, it was a brutal four-lap slog up and down the hills of Central Park. When the gun went off for the first time in 1970, it was also 85 degrees out that day,” writes his grandson, Colin Kern.
Community response was lackluster: there were even fewer spectators than runners. “The race started and finished in front of Tavern on the Green and only cost $1 to enter,” writes Kern. “Someone brought cans of soda to the finish, but there was a commotion when no one could find a can opener. My grandmother recalls only one reporter showing up to document the race. There were a handful of spectators, but most weren’t really sure what they were witnessing.”
Surprisingly, sports historian Pamela Cooper credits female runners — a group historically barred from sporting competitions — with being “the first to present the possibilities of the marathon as a profit-making experience.” Disappointed by the lack of fanfare accompanying the first marathon, Lebow was convinced that large-scale sponsorship could only be achieved with greater inclusivity and scale. His chance came with the “Crazylegs 10k,” the first all-female race sponsored by a shaving cream company. To drum up publicity, Lebow hired six Playboy bunnies to enter the race, a stunt that fueled major growth in female participation.
“I’d like to tell you that old Fred was an early feminist or something,” said George Hirsch, former chairman of the board at NYRR. “But Fred was a promoter. He was the P.T. Barnum of running, and he was going to turn the sport into something big and fun.” Over the next 12 years, more than 400 road races for women would be established in 27 countries, pressuring the Olympics to introduce the women’s marathon in 1984.
Lebow used the same model of sponsorship, technology, and marketing to launch the Bicentennial 1976 New York Marathon, the first to span all five boroughs. He targeted middle-aged professionals and other high-earning ilk, a demographic the sport is still known for today (in 1983, 90% of NYRR members were college graduates and by 1998, one researcher found that just five professions — attorneys, physicians, engineers, managers, and educators — represented the bulk of runners).
He lured two celebrity runners to participate in the race with the promise of an “under-the-table” prize if they won. In later years, New York Mayor Edward Koch remembered how, “[Lebow] came to my office to plead for some money to pay great foreign athletes to compete in the race… I didn’t think the city should do that, so I turned him down. But he went out and raised the money to pay the expenses for foreign runners to come to New York and compete.”
Two thousand people participated in the 1976 New York Marathon but over a million came to spectate. “The profits from the first year were so staggering that Lebow was able to purchase the Brown Building for $1 million,” observes one sport tourism researcher. “He was also able to promise an increase in the under-the-table purse for elite runners like Rodgers and Shorter to come back.” By the end of the decade, marathons transformed from a purist, anti-commercial passion sport into an international mega-contest featuring all manner of former couch potatoes, self-punishing investment bankers, and elite athletes.
International Dominance & Ultrarunning
“Just as I’ve grown accustomed to hearing the phrase ‘I’m hungry’ 200 times a day, I’ve also started to get used to a regular symphony of groans, gasps, and what Brendan calls ‘old-man-noises’ when he sits. And when he stands. And when he lies down. And especially when he dunks his feet into his weekly ice bath. I now refrain from panicking when I hear moans coming from behind the bathroom door.”
— Hilary Oliver, “So, I’m Dating an Ultrarunner”
Today, the New York Marathon is the largest in the world, with 54,205 runners completing the race in 2019 (pre-COVID participation levels have yet to fully bounce back). Prior to the turmoil of COVID, sports journalist Matthew Futterman dubbed the New York Road Runners the “de facto leader of running in the United States,” crediting it with hosting the Olympic Trials marathon prior to the 2008 Olympics, establishing the industry’s premier antidoping and testing policy, and surpassing annual revenues of $110 million (a number triple the amount collected by U.S.A. Track & Field each year).
Since the onset of the pandemic, trail running has continued its upward trek, with 12.5 million hitting the trails for a run in 2021 (a 5.6% increase from 2020). Perhaps the fastest growing corner of the endurance distance world, however, is ultrarunning, a sport described by many participants as “an eating competition with some running thrown in.” In 2018, the Financial Times reported that 611,098 people worldwide had participated in an ultra-marathon, an increase of 345% over 10 years.
“Behind the beautiful Instagram accounts and the incredible feats of the runners, a gold rush is taking place, with prospectors jostling for power and control,” writes Adharanand Finn in The Rise of the Ultra Runners. “As well as ITRA [International Trail Running Association] and the big races, multinational clothing and outdoor sports brands have moved in, staking out their ground by signing up the biggest events and the star athletes, producing slick advertising campaigns, with viral films of men and women racing across sumptuous landscapes, hurtling down fantastical precipices. Ultra-running is still a largely untapped and unregulated market, and there are no signs of its growth slowing.”
In such an environment, is it any surprise that 2023 will witness the debut of Highland Kings, the world’s first “luxury wilderness” ultra-marathon? For the price of £15,499, participants can recreate life as a Scottish Highlander, “recuperate[ing] each night in an opulent race camp, rest[ing] weary legs in hydrotherapy pools, and sleep[ing] on memory-foam-topped king-size beds in individual, butler-serviced bell tents, all while being fed by a chef from a Michelin-starred restaurant.”
While many question the wisdom of combining fine dining and Scotch with ultra-running (or trekking 120 miles in the Scottish wilderness with the “wind blowing 80 miles an hour vertically in their faces”), Matt Smith, the race’s organizer, sees it as a natural extension for wealthy thrill seekers who have already been combining extreme skiing with booze and luxury for generations.
But, for every elitist Marathon Des Sable or UTMB race, there is a plethora of no-frills “Fat Ass” events for the true purists left in the sport. One such race, the Twin States 50m, has no entry fee, no aid stations, and a minimal RSVP to the race director. Awards include “one item from [the race director’s] pantry, or some other object. Things in [his] pantry include canned rabbit, mushrooms, tomato sauce, creamed corn or any variety of things.”
As elite ultramarathoner Anton Krupicka concludes, “I think the sport is big enough to accommodate both kinds of races: those with large fields, media, prize money, and a focus on the sharp end, and those that are more low-key and grassroots with no fanfare.”
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