NYC Marathon Start Waves: What the Gap Is Worth in Heat

New York sends its runners off in five waves, and Wave 1 and Wave 5 start 2 hours and 20 minutes apart on the clock. Most advice treats the wave as a logistics question. It is also a weather question, because the morning warms while the field is still on the course. This preview asks what the gap is worth in heat, using our race-day forecast for Sunday, November 1.

Five starts, 35 minutes apart

The 2026 start timeline lists Wave 1 at 9:10 AM, Wave 2 at 9:45, Wave 3 at 10:20, Wave 4 at 10:55 and Wave 5 at 11:30. Corrals close at 8:45, 9:25, 10:00, 10:40 and 11:15. They open at 8:10, 9:05, 9:45, 10:25 and 11:00. The professional women start at 8:35 AM and the professional men at 9:05, ahead of Wave 1. Start times are subject to change.

Chicago's three waves span an hour. New York's five span 2 hours and 20 minutes, so the question of what the late morning does to you has more room to matter here.

What the forecast says the morning does

Our race-day forecast starts cool and warms all the way through the start window. The hourly air temperature is 53.3°F at 7 AM, 55.2°F at 8, 57.1°F at 9, 58.9°F at 10, 60.5°F at 11, 62.2°F at noon and 64.8°F at 1 PM, then 63.3°F at 2. Dew points sit around 51 to 53°F through the morning and cloud cover is about 90% at 9 AM, rising to 97% by 1 PM.

Measured at each wave's gun, Wave 1 starts at 57.4°F and Wave 5 at 61.4°F, a difference of 4.0°F. This is the forecast as it stood on October 22. It is not an observation of what the morning will be.

The wind turns through the same hours. It blows from about the east at 7 AM (87°) and from the southeast by noon (131°), at roughly 9 to 12 mph. We do not price wind separately for each wave, so we make no claim that one wave gets more or less of it.

Warmer than a normal New York morning

Our weather history averages the 9 AM to 1 PM hours for every edition we have scored, 24 races from 2000 to 2025. The median year sits near 54°F. This forecast averages 60.7°F over the same hours, about 7°F warmer. Only three of those 24 years averaged warmer: 2004 at 61.7°F, 2003 at 62.9°F and 2022 at 73.0°F.

That gap between this year and a normal one is bigger than the 4.0°F between the Wave 1 and Wave 5 starts. We did not price a typical morning in this run, so we cannot say in minutes what the extra warmth costs.

What the wave gap is worth

We priced each wave with the same heat model the race page uses. For each start time and goal, it averages the forecast hours a runner is on course, weighting each hour by the time spent in it, then turns the heat penalty into minutes and seconds per mile. Here is Wave 1 against Wave 5 at three goals.

• 3:00 goal: Wave 1 loses 3.5 minutes (8 sec/mi) to heat. Wave 5 loses 4.5 minutes (10 sec/mi). The gap is 1.0 minute.
• 4:00 goal: Wave 1 loses 6.2 minutes (14 sec/mi). Wave 5 loses 7.2 minutes (17 sec/mi). The gap is 1.0 minute.
• 5:00 goal: Wave 1 loses 8.1 minutes (19 sec/mi). Wave 5 loses 8.9 minutes (20 sec/mi). The gap is 0.8 minutes.

The seconds per mile are rounded to whole numbers, so they can differ by one from the minutes. Waves 2, 3 and 4 fall in between. At a 4:00 goal they lose 6.7, 7.0 and 7.1 minutes, so no single step to a later wave adds more than half a minute.

The gap is small partly because the afternoon stops warming. At a 4:00 goal a Wave 1 runner finishes around 1:10 PM, near the forecast's 64.8°F peak, at 64.6°F. A Wave 5 runner starts four degrees warmer and finishes around 3:30 PM at 62.5°F. The late wave starts in more heat and ends in less.

The goal matters more than the wave

Hold the wave fixed and the goal does most of the work. A Wave 1 runner pays 3.5 minutes of heat at a 3:00 and 8.1 minutes at a 5:00. That 4.6 minute spread is more than four times the largest wave gap in the table. Slower runners spend more hours on the course, so they meet more of the warm late morning.

What is in these numbers and what is not

Priced: the heat stress estimate the race page uses, built from air temperature, humidity, sun and wind speed in the forecast hours, averaged over the time a runner is on course.

Not priced: rain, because this run prices the heat part of the model only. Wind drag along the course, which depends on which way each mile runs, is also left out, and so are the hills and the bridges. With cloud cover this high the sun adds little to the estimate. A clearer sky than the forecast shows would add heat on top of these figures.

Check the forecast section on the race page for the rain chance before you decide anything.

How to use this on race week

Run the wave you were given. Placement confirmations went out by email in mid-October. A runner can move to a later wave but never to an earlier one, and starting early risks disqualification. In this forecast a later wave costs a little more heat, not less, so moving later does not buy a cooler race.

Plan the first hour by effort. The forecast gains about 5°F between 9 AM and noon, and the effort you hold early costs more in the later miles. Our race pacing guide covers running by effort when the clock and the conditions disagree.

Check the forecast again the day before. The forecast moves, and the race page's forecast section follows the goal and wave you set.

In this forecast the wave is worth about a minute. The day itself is about 7°F warmer than a typical New York race morning, and your goal moves the heat cost far more than your wave does.

More NYC Marathon Guides

• NYC Marathon Weather History: What the race-day data shows, year by year.
• NYC Marathon Course Strategy: Mile-by-mile breakdown with pacing tips.
• NYC Marathon Start Line Guide: What to bring to Fort Wadsworth and how the waves run.
• NYC Marathon Packing List: Gear for the village, the bridge and the finish.
• New York City Marathon race page: The live forecast for your wave and goal.