New York City's 5-Borough Marathon Reaches Its 40th Anniversary; Legendary Milestone

The largest marathon in the world New York City's 5-Borough Marathon finally reached its 40th anniversary. It all started forty years ago when two of the world's finest marathon runners were each handed a check of $3,000. The said check was a secret reward for helping raise the profile of the very first New York City's 5-Borough Marathon.

ABC news reported that the New York City 5-Borough Marathon now is the world's largest marathon that began in 1970 when over 126 men and 1 woman circled the iconic NYC Central Park. Six years later, 2,000 additional amateur runners including Hirsch ran the race to the streets of New York for the first time and touching all five boroughs in the city.

 The American marathon record-holder Bill Rodgers and the Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter were leading the runner's pack on that year. Both paid to push the 26.2-mile run into the global spotlight. But the champion went to Rodgers who won his first of four New York marathons and the payments to hit the pavement certainly paid off.

The Chairman of the board of the New York Road Runners Club George Hirsch said that they wanted to give the most important runners in the world an incentive to be here because these guys made a big difference.

According to Fox news, this 40th anniversary of New York City's 5-Borough Marathon event has about 50,000 runners from all over 120 countries and half of them are women that have registered. The elite athletes will be competing for a prize purse $803,000, with possible time bonuses. The champions from both the men's and women's division will each receive a prize of $100,000. An additional reward of $25,000 will be given to the fastest competitor in a wheelchair division.

All eyes will be on last year's defending champion Mary Keitany of Kenya, who also won in 2014. For the male runner, last year's New York City's 5-Borough Marathon champion was Kenyan Stanley Biwott, who is this year's best bet. But who knows what the outcome of this year's New York City's 5-Borough Marathon.