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ING New York City Marathon 2006 - Overview
Over 92,000 runners vied for spots - not at the top of the ING New York City Marathon leader board, but to gain a spot at the starting line. The New York Road Runners bills the race as "One Race. 37,000 Stories." At MarathonGuide.com, we're prolific writers, but we're not going to attempt to tell each of these stories. For us, an overview and coverage of the Elite and American races will have to suffice.
Arguably the best elite fields in marathoning history gathered in New York City for the 37th running of the ING New York City Marathon. In a world where most only recognize a few of the names of elite marathoners, most of the biggest names were here: Paul Tergat, Meb Keflezighi, Stefano Baldini, Deena Kastor, Catherine Ndereba, Alan Culpepper. To those, we'll add the names that many of us know (and that you should know): Hendrick Ramaala, Rodgers Rop, Dathan Ritzenhein, Peter Gilmore, Jelena Prokopcuka, Susan Chepkemei and others...
The Male and Female winners.
But how did they manage to win?
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With such great fields, and a prize of $130,000+ for the top man and woman - we would have expected one of the most competitive and fastest marathons on record. Instead, and oddly, the marathon turned into a waiting game and the unexpected happened in both the men's and women's marathons.
We don't want to spoil the surprise of how this all played itself out (read the further coverage below), but we all thought it was obvious what would happen: Paul Tergat, the defending champion and world record holder, or perhaps Hendrick Ramaala would be the two men to watch and key off of. and Deena Kastor, the American record holder and London and Chicago champion, was going to win the women's marathon and all eyes should be on her. These would be the obvious and pre-ordained champions of the ING NYC Marathon. The field knew that the correct strategy was to watch these champions and do whatever they did. There were some wildcards in the field, but we were all so smart and we knew exactly what would happen in this race. Or so we thought.... And so they thought...
The best fields ever assembled resulted in: no fast times - no stunning finish - just strategy, good and bad...
Continuing coverage of the ING NYC Marathon 2006 races:
Post-Race Writeups
The Overview - What Happened?
NYC Marathon 2006: The Men's Race
NYC Marathon 2006: The Women's Race
As It Happens:
2006 ING NYC Marathon Live Race Coverage/ Mile-By-Mile
Pre-Race Coverage
Marathon Elite Lists and Overview
Pre-Race Interviews with top competitors (additional writeups still in progress)
Also, Complete Results of the 2006 ING NYC Marathon
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