On Sunday, November 1, 2026, Sweden's Andreas Almgren lined up on Staten Island for the TCS New York City Marathon having never run 42.195 km in his life — not in a race, not in training. Two hours, six minutes and one second later he broke the tape in Central Park, 13 seconds clear of Italy's Yemaneberhan Crippa, with defending champion Benson Kipruto fourth. His Strava upload that afternoon was captioned with a three-line joke: "I just finished my first marathon." "Cool, did you win?" "Yes."
The 2:06:01 is the third-fastest time in the 50-year history of the five-borough course, behind only Tamirat Tola's 2:04:58 course record (2023) and Geoffrey Mutai's 2:05:06 (2011). It is four seconds off Suldan Hassan's Swedish national record. It made Almgren the first man to win New York on his marathon debut since Gebre Gebremariam in 2010, and the first European-born winner since Italy's Giacomo Leone in 1996. For the full results, see NYC Marathon 2026 results; for the man himself, see who is Andreas Almgren.
This page is about the pacing. Almgren made his Strava activity public, so for once we have the whole race from the runner's own watch: every kilometre, with grade-adjusted pace and elevation change, on one of the hilliest courses in the World Marathon Majors.
The headline numbers
| Official (chip) | Almgren's watch (Strava) | |
|---|---|---|
| Finish time | 2:06:01 | 2:06:04 moving time |
| Distance | 42.195 km | 42.59 km |
| Average pace | 2:59/km (4:48/mile) | 2:58/km |
| First half | 1:04:01 | — |
| Second half | 1:02:00 | — |
| Negative split | 2 min 1 sec | — |
| Last 7.195 km (35K to finish) | 20:27 (2:50/km) | — |
| Elevation gain | — | 281 m |
| Conditions | 9°C, cloudy, 67% humidity, 5 km/h wind | from the activity's weather widget |
| Watch | — | COROS PACE 4 Pro |
Two things stand out before you even look at the splits. First, the negative split: the second half was two minutes faster than the first, on a course whose hardest climbs (the Queensboro Bridge, the Fifth Avenue hill, the rolling Central Park finish) are all in the second half. Second, the closing speed. Almgren covered the final 7.195 km from the 35K checkpoint in 20:27, which is 2:50 per kilometre — faster than his average for the whole race, and 13 seconds faster than Crippa over the same stretch.
Kilometre-by-kilometre splits from Strava
The table below is Almgren's Strava activity, kilometre by kilometre. Pace is what the watch recorded; GAP is Strava's grade-adjusted pace, an estimate of the equivalent flat-ground effort for that kilometre; Elev is the net elevation change over the kilometre. We have added the course landmark for each section.
| KM | Pace | GAP | Elev | Where on the course |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3:28 | 3:04 | +34 m | Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge climb |
| 2 | 3:02 | 2:59 | +2 m | Bridge crest |
| 3 | 2:55 | 3:10 | −40 m | Descent into Brooklyn |
| 4 | 3:07 | 3:06 | −6 m | Fourth Avenue, Bay Ridge |
| 5 | 2:55 | 2:55 | −2 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 6 | 3:04 | 3:03 | +1 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 7 | 3:05 | 3:02 | +3 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 8 | 3:04 | 3:06 | −4 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 9 | 3:03 | 3:09 | −15 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 10 | 3:01 | 2:56 | +8 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 11 | 3:05 | 3:06 | −4 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 12 | 2:56 | 2:55 | −1 m | Fourth Avenue |
| 13 | 3:01 | 2:57 | +4 m | Flatbush Avenue |
| 14 | 3:02 | 2:52 | +16 m | Lafayette Avenue climb |
| 15 | 2:49 | 2:53 | −11 m | Bedford Avenue |
| 16 | 2:48 | 2:51 | −10 m | Bedford Avenue |
| 17 | 3:06 | 2:59 | +10 m | Williamsburg |
| 18 | 3:03 | 3:01 | +1 m | Williamsburg |
| 19 | 2:55 | 2:58 | −11 m | Greenpoint |
| 20 | 3:00 | 2:57 | +4 m | Greenpoint |
| 21 | 2:51 | 2:52 | −4 m | Pulaski Bridge, halfway |
| 22 | 2:49 | 2:46 | +2 m | Long Island City |
| 23 | 2:50 | 2:50 | 0 m | Long Island City |
| 24 | 2:59 | 2:53 | +7 m | Approach to Queensboro Bridge |
| 25 | 3:11 | 2:53 | +31 m | Queensboro Bridge climb |
| 26 | 2:56 | 3:04 | −23 m | Off the bridge onto First Avenue |
| 27 | 3:02 | 3:02 | −4 m | First Avenue |
| 28 | 2:52 | 2:51 | −1 m | First Avenue |
| 29 | 2:57 | 3:00 | −11 m | First Avenue |
| 30 | 2:52 | 2:51 | 0 m | First Avenue |
| 31 | 3:04 | 3:04 | 0 m | Upper First Avenue |
| 32 | 2:59 | 2:53 | +10 m | Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx |
| 33 | 2:52 | 2:52 | −4 m | The Bronx |
| 34 | 2:57 | 2:54 | +1 m | Madison Avenue Bridge into Harlem |
| 35 | 3:03 | 3:03 | −3 m | Fifth Avenue, Harlem |
| 36 | 2:57 | 2:56 | 0 m | Fifth Avenue |
| 37 | 2:50 | 2:50 | −2 m | Fifth Avenue |
| 38 | 2:54 | 2:44 | +18 m | Fifth Avenue hill (Kipruto's surge) |
| 39 | 2:53 | 2:47 | +8 m | Into Central Park |
| 40 | 2:42 | 2:46 | −13 m | Central Park, East Drive |
| 41 | 2:46 | 2:45 | −3 m | Central Park South |
| 42 | 2:45 | 2:40 | +9 m | Uphill finish to Tavern on the Green |
| 42.26+ | 2:33 | 2:35 | −2 m | Final metres |
A few notes on reading the table. The watch logged 42.59 km, about 400 m more than the certified course, which is normal for GPS in Manhattan's high-rise canyons and on bridges. That means each "kilometre" on the watch is slightly shorter than a real course kilometre, so the paces read a touch faster than the official 2:59/km. It also explains why Strava awarded Almgren a "marathon PR" of 2:04:42: the watch believed he had covered 42.195 km 79 seconds before he actually reached the line. If you have ever finished a big-city marathon and wondered why your watch time is faster than your chip time, this is the same effect, and we cover it in how long is a marathon.
The race in 5 km blocks
Grouping the watch kilometres into blocks of five shows the shape of the race more clearly than the raw splits:
| Watch km | Block time | Average pace | Net elevation |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–5 | 15:27 | 3:05/km | −12 m |
| 6–10 | 15:17 | 3:03/km | −7 m |
| 11–15 | 14:53 | 2:59/km | +4 m |
| 16–20 | 14:52 | 2:58/km | −6 m |
| 21–25 | 14:40 | 2:56/km | +36 m |
| 26–30 | 14:39 | 2:56/km | −39 m |
| 31–35 | 14:55 | 2:59/km | +4 m |
| 36–40 | 14:16 | 2:51/km | +11 m |
| 41–42.6 | 4:12 | 2:42/km | +4 m |
Every block from 21 km onwards was faster than every block before it, with the exception of the 31–35 km stretch through the Bronx and Harlem, where the lead group of ten was still intact and, in Almgren's words, nobody was pushing. The fastest 5 km block of the entire race was kilometres 36 to 40, which includes the Fifth Avenue hill, the hardest sustained climb on the course after the two big bridges.
Official checkpoint times
The New York Road Runners timing mats tell the same story from the outside:
| Checkpoint | Time | Segment pace | What was happening |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5K | 15:30 | 3:06/km | Large pack, Verrazzano climb and descent |
| Halfway (21.1K) | 1:04:01 | 3:02/km | Zouhair Talbi leading by 3 seconds; 17 men within 3 seconds at mile 17 |
| 25K | 1:15:41 | 2:59/km | Ten men together |
| 30K | 1:30:26 | 2:57/km | Group of Kamworor, Almgren, Talbi, Kiprop, Mantz, Geleta at the front |
| 35K | 1:45:33 | 3:01/km | Conner Mantz nominally leading; first ten separated by under a second |
| Finish | 2:06:01 | 2:50/km | Almgren alone; Crippa 13 seconds back |
Halfway in 1:04:01 was a sensible championship-style opening for a course with no pacemakers. From there the pack trimmed itself slowly rather than breaking apart: ten men at 25K, still ten at 35K. The decisive section was the Fifth Avenue hill at about 38 km, where Kipruto surged. Almgren later said the surge gave him energy rather than taking it away: "When Kipruto picked up the pace on 5th Avenue, I started getting more energy." His plan for Central Park was to respond to every move. At 59th Street, on Central Park South, he looked back, saw two metres to Crippa, and "put it into another gear to see how he responds to it." Crippa could not.
What the splits tell you about how he won
He let the course set the early pace. The first kilometre was 3:28 on the watch — the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is the biggest single climb on the course, and it comes from a standing start. The grade-adjusted pace for that kilometre is 3:04, which is essentially the pace of the next ten kilometres along Fourth Avenue. In effort terms he never went out hard.
He treated the bridges as effort, not pace. Kilometre 25, the Queensboro Bridge climb, was his slowest of the race at 3:11, but the GAP is 2:53 — he was working at the same intensity as the fast kilometres through Long Island City before it. The reverse happened off the bridge: kilometre 26 was a 2:56 with a 3:04 GAP, because 23 m of descent did part of the work. This is exactly what even-effort pacing looks like on a hilly course, and it is the strategy we recommend in how to pace a marathon.
He hid in the pack until 35K. From halfway to 35K the official pace hovered between 2:57 and 3:01 per kilometre, with ten men still together. A debutant with no idea how the final 10 km would feel had every reason to let the experienced marathoners decide the pace, and he did.
Then he ran a 10,000m race. The last 7.195 km were covered at 2:50/km. The final three watch kilometres were 2:42, 2:46 and 2:45 — the 2:42 is the fastest kilometre of the entire race, run after two hours of running, on a downhill in Central Park. The last kilometre is an uphill drag to the finish at Tavern on the Green, and the GAP for it is 2:40, the hardest effort of the day. Almgren ran a 26:52 10,000m on the track and a 12:44 5,000m; a 2:45 closing kilometre is comfortably inside the pace he can hold for 10 km, and that reserve is what the rest of the field could not match.
Strava also handed him the course records on its "NYC Marathon Mile 25" (4:16) and "NYC Marathon Mile 26" (4:20) segments. In a race where the first 21 km were run at around 3:02/km, finishing with miles at 4:16 and 4:20 is the whole story.
What a recreational runner can take from it
None of us will run 2:45 for the last kilometre of a marathon, but the structure of the race is copyable at any pace:
- Budget effort, not pace, on hills. Almgren's slowest kilometre and his fastest kilometre had almost the same grade-adjusted pace. If you are chasing a goal time on a hilly course, run the climbs by heart rate or perceived effort and let the watch pace drift. Our hill running guide covers how to train for that.
- Go through halfway slightly conservative. A 1:04:01 / 1:02:00 split is a 3% negative split. For a 4-hour marathoner that is roughly 2:02 / 1:58. Nobody regrets having something left at 35 km.
- Know what pace you can hold for 10 km. Almgren's late-race speed was built on years of 5,000m and 10,000m racing. For most runners the equivalent is simply doing enough race-pace and faster work that marathon pace feels controlled, which is the job of speed work.
- Expect your watch to read long. 42.59 km for a 42.195 km course is a 1% over-read. If your goal is 4:00:00 and you pace by watch at exactly 5:41/km, you will cross the line at about 4:02. Plan for it with the marathon pace chart and aim a few seconds per kilometre faster than the bare arithmetic.
Frequently asked questions
What was Andreas Almgren's time at the 2026 New York City Marathon?
2:06:01, the third-fastest time ever on the New York course and the fastest winning time since Tamirat Tola's 2:04:58 course record in 2023.
Was it really his first marathon?
Yes. He had never raced the distance before and, by his own account before the race, had never run 42 km in training either, though his build-up included runs of 40 km and days of 46 km split over two sessions.
Did he run a negative split?
Yes: 1:04:01 for the first half and 1:02:00 for the second, a negative split of 2 minutes 1 second.
What was his fastest kilometre?
2:42 on the watch for kilometre 40, descending through Central Park. The hardest effort by grade-adjusted pace was the final, uphill kilometre at 2:40 GAP.
What shoes did he wear?
His Strava activity does not list a shoe, and we have not been able to confirm the model from race coverage, so we have left it out rather than guess.
Is 2:06:01 a Swedish record?
No, by four seconds. Suldan Hassan ran 2:05:57 at the 2025 Tokyo Marathon. Almgren's time was run on a far slower course with no pacemakers.
Further reading
- Who is Andreas Almgren? — the former 800m runner, the injuries, the records from 3,000m to the half marathon, and why he chose New York.
- NYC Marathon 2026 results — the full men's and women's top 10, the wheelchair races, and the records.
- How Sabastian Sawe broke the 2-hour marathon — a very different kind of race: paced, flat, and run for the clock.
- How to pace a marathon — even, negative and positive splits, and how to run the one you want.
- Marathon world records — where New York fits in a year that produced the first sub-2.
Work out your own splits, per km or per mile, at runpace.co.