James Thomas crossed the finish line of the New York City Marathon dead last, well after dark, closing out his 43rd run through all five boroughs at age 78. Crowds that had thinned through the afternoon stuck around to cheer him in anyway, capping a streak the Staten Island runner began back in 1980.
Thomas was the final finisher among the roughly 60,000 runners who started the 2026 race, according to NewsNation, which reported he crossed at 11:20 p.m. Sunday. A separate account from Hudson Valley Post put his finish at around 11:19 p.m., estimating he spent roughly 13 hours and 59 minutes on the 26.2-mile course. Either way, Thomas was still out there long after most of the field had gone home, and the crowd was still waiting for him.
A Streak Dating Back to 1980
Thomas ran his first New York City Marathon in 1980, and this year's race marked his 43rd finish, per the same NewsNation report. He told the outlet he intends for this to be his last time running the race, framing the effort as something that takes more than legs. “It's gotta work as a team,” he said, referring to the coordination between mind and body needed to finish.
The physical demands of the course have caught up with him, the Hudson Valley Post reported, noting that his body can no longer keep up with the toll of the 26.2-mile route through all five boroughs. Spectators and New York Road Runners staff greeted him at the finish with what the outlet described as a roaring crowd, even as the hour grew late.
Marco Eagle also captured the scene, documenting a crowd that stayed late in the dark to cheer Thomas through the final stretch of his 43rd marathon. The official 2026 race, per World Athletics results listings, was held November 1.
Older Runners Are a Small but Growing Share of the Field
Thomas's finish lands amid a broader shift in who shows up to run New York City's marathon. Runners aged 75 and older remain among the least represented age groups in the race, according to a study published in Nature that analyzed more than one million finishers between 1999 and 2024. That research found overall participation generally rose across those years, aside from pandemic-era dips, and noted that among runners 50 and older, the fastest average times increasingly came from competitors in the United States, Japan, Germany, and Switzerland.
Even so, older finishers are showing up in bigger numbers than they used to. The 2025 race set a record with 59,226 finishers, according to Sportico, which reported that runners 60 and older made up 88% more of the field in 2025 than in 2015, while the number of women in their 70s running the race jumped 250% over the same decade. Sportico also noted similar growth among runners over 60 in the Chicago and Boston marathons, each seeing jumps of more than 50% over the past ten years.
Thomas wasn't the only septuagenarian-plus story from this year's field. NewsNation also reported on 90-year-old Marty Granoff, who finished in 8 hours and 26 minutes in what was his sixth marathon — a fraction of Thomas's 43 races, but another reminder of how far the marathon's oldest finishers are willing to push themselves.
