NYC Marathon Course Map and Route

It’s noisy. It’s crowded. It’s a pain in the neck to get to the start. It’s hillier than you probably want it to be. It’s going to be hotter than most runners would prefer this Sunday, as well.

Deal with it, because the New York City Marathon will always be on the bucket list of anyone who has ever flirted with the idea of joining a mass of humanity on a 26.2-mile trek. This is the grand journey through the greatest city in the world — at least that is how we New Yorkers will describe it. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

There are many bridges to cross — well, five, but two of them are very long. There is an endless straightaway early on and a couple of sneaky-hard hills toward the end that will test the brain as much as the legs. There are also countless strangers cheering and handing out water and bananas and orange slices. And more mass love than anyone not named Taylor Swift or Beyoncé will ever feel.

Soak it all in. That energy will get you and something like 99 percent of the more than 50,000 people who start the race across the finish line.

If you are a first-time marathoner, a veteran or someone who knows someone who is running and wants to understand the experience from inside the barricades, this is the marathon in 13 parts, as we New Yorkers see it. (An official PDF course map is here.)

The bridge, and then the Republic of Brooklyn

It starts with crossing the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge. Big decision here. Hurry along because you are going for a personal record or take a minute at the apex to snap a glorious photo of Lady Liberty and the Lower Manhattan skyline in the distance?

It’s a tough call. Or not. Plenty of folks will be shooting as they run. I always wondered how those pictures turn out. The other money shot happens if you climb on top of the median and turn back toward the starting line to capture the throng beginning the pilgrimage.

Make it quick though. Some of us are trying to make a time here. And the bands and bedlam of Bay Ridge beckon. A couple of turns there lead to the big right turn onto the long straightaway of Fourth Avenue. And just like that, the first five kilometers are in the books.

Fourth Avenue forever

It’s not forever, but it feels like it. There may even be some quiet blocks in the northern part of Bay Ridge, but before too long, say, four miles or so, those will give way to Park Slope to the east and Red Hook, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill to the west.

One foot in front of the other. Enjoy the flats. The Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower near Downtown Brooklyn gets bigger with every step. It’ll come.

Downtown Brooklyn gets the party started. Fort Greene, Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy keep it going.

There’s noise that you hear, and then there are roars that you feel. At Barclays Center, and then all the way up Lafayette Avenue and through the heart of the brownstone-lined streets in the belly of the borough, the sound vibrates in the gut. It makes the incline of Lafayette Avenue nearly disappear. Stay calm and keep the rhythm if you can, but that’s nearly impossible. By the time the left turn into Bedford-Stuyvesant comes, you may be flying.

Williamsburg: Can someone turn the volume back on?

Williamsburg delivers what may be the least and most fun stretches of the marathon. That party in Bed-Stuy just kind of ends with the grind across the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and the journey through an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood that doesn’t really do Marathon Sunday. Mile 11 registers about a negative two on the fun meter.

Hang on, though, up there, not far away at all, it’s north Williamsburg, packed with spectators who will be thrilled to welcome you into their enclave of bars and cafes and envelope you with water and Gatorade and snacks around McCarren Park.

Two bridges in Queens

Are you happier to see the Pulaski Bridge into Queens that marks the halfway mark or up ahead, just in the distance, the Queensboro Bridge (no one calls it the Ed Koch Bridge) that will carry you into Manhattan?

Pulaski is longer than you want it to be but largely harmless, especially at this point in the race. Midway through the bridge is halfway through the race. But Long Island City is up next, and it rocks these days, giving a nice burst of energy that is going to help soon — a lot.

The bridge that inspires the music

Last year, just before the turn onto the Queensboro Bridge, there was a woman fronting a band and singing “Beautiful Day,” by U2. I looked over at her and gave her a thumbs up. She looked right back at me and smiled. All the way up the Queensboro (known in song, of course, as the 59th Street Bridge), I was singing “Beautiful Day” in my head through that mile-long climb.

Hopefully, that same singer or another one will send me onto the bridge once more. One year, the band in that same spot (I think) was playing Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender.” That worked. The view of the skyline and the harbor is a marvel. Hear a song in your head to drown out all the labored breathing, then ride the downhill into Manhattan. Here comes the noise.

First Avenue, and away we go.

You’ve got 10 miles left. For the next three miles, there are crowds six people deep on the sidewalks, spectators hanging off the fire escapes, music coming from the bars where the taps opened early and big speakers blasting sounds through the flats in East Harlem.

Got a mom or a friend to say hello to? Send them to East Harlem, and then they can hustle west to catch you again as you roll down Fifth Avenue.

Into (and out of) the Bronx

Low and short bridges. Hip-hop and salsa. Quick turns. An entire borough in a mile and a half. The 20-mile mark. Always, always, always someone with a random plate of banana pieces. I’m never happier than when I am moving through the Bronx. Yes, pain awaits, but the thing is getting near done.

Getting back to Manhattan

Harlem and upper Fifth Avenue feel your pain. They know how short and how long five miles feel in your head right now. But the bridges are over. Time to get down to business. There’s a bit of blessed mayhem around Marcus Garvey Park, especially if the gospel choir is singing outside the church as it was one year. And as you turn south once more, the treetops of Central Park come into view. We all know what happens there.

The Fifth Avenue hill

It doesn’t have a catchy name like Heartbreak Hill, but that stretch of Mile 23 and part of Mile 24 is every bit as brutal, even if it doesn’t look like it should be. As Mount Sinai Hospital gives way to the start of Museum Mile — Museum of the City of New York, the Jewish Museum, the Cooper Hewitt, the Guggenheim Museum — you’re almost at that glorious right turn through Engineers’ Gate.

You’ve made it to the park.

Now you’re in Central Park. Say it again. You’re in Central Park. This is where important moments of “Gossip Girl” happened. It’s where Jackie O. used to walk every morning, where John F. Kennedy Jr. was mugged after school one day in the 1970s. A quarter-mile in there is a roll past the Temple of Dendur, then down the hill with the black cat statue looming on the right. On the slight rise after the boathouse, take a glance through the trees to the other side of the Sheep Meadow. That’s where the finish line is.

Another hill? Seriously?

Look, this is New York. If it were an easy place to exist, everyone would live here and run uphill on Mile 26 across Central Park South. That’s not how we roll. If you don’t like it, there’s a quiet, flat marathon somewhere else that will have you. Have fun running in silence for four hours (or more). Yes, this hill is a drag, but it’s fine. The slight incline is more obnoxious than nasty. Feel that wall of sound once more and focus on the Christopher Columbus statue up ahead. One last turn there, and it’s home free.

Maybe this stretch back in the park feels a little longer than you thought it would. Oh, and it does rise a bit on that last 200 yards. You got a problem with that? Just rise along with it and smile for the camera as you cross the finish line and go get your medal.

And no matter how much it hurts at this moment, in an hour, or a day, or a week, you’re going to dream of doing it all over again. Trust us on that one.

And come back anytime. If you love New York, we love you right back.