The NYC Marathon course

Out of Fort Wadsworth and onto the rising Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, with water on both sides. The exposed opening climb rewards patience: keep your effort controlled before the descent into Brooklyn.

Still on the span, then down off it toward the Gowanus Expressway and Brooklyn. The road falls away for a second straight mile and your legs will happily take everything it offers: take less, because nothing on this course pays that back.

Down Dahlgren Place and 92nd Street into Bay Ridge, then the long left onto Fourth Avenue. This is where the crowds finally arrive and where the road tilts up for the first time, so let the noise lift you without lifting the pace.

Four lanes of Fourth Avenue, dead straight and effectively level. Good mile to settle the rhythm and sort your fluids while the road is asking nothing of you.

Sunset Park, and the avenue gives a chunk of it back downhill. Roll it at the same effort you ran on the flat rather than chasing the free speed.

The avenue keeps unspooling, still trending down and still arrow straight. A stretch this uniform makes the miles blur together, so check your effort rather than trusting how easy the splits look.

The last easy stretch of Fourth Avenue. A long shallow grade starts near the mile marker and runs all the way to about 8.5, so shift into it early instead of meeting it mid-mile at downhill pace.

Fourth Avenue ends at the Flatbush Avenue crossing and the course swings onto Lafayette Avenue. That long grade tops out around 8.5 and the road is narrower than the avenue you just left, so expect the field to bunch and the sound to close in.

Steady uphill on Lafayette through Fort Greene and Clinton Hill. The gain is modest on paper but it runs the whole mile, so give back a few seconds here rather than fighting to hold an even split.

Lafayette hands off to Bedford Avenue and the road drops hard through Bedford-Stuyvesant. Do not bank the descent: a short, honest pitch starts right at the mile marker and carries into 11.

Bedford Avenue running north through Williamsburg, uphill the entire way. The crowd thins along here, which makes it very easy to drift, so pick a runner ahead of you and hold the gap.

North out of Williamsburg onto Manhattan Avenue and Nassau Avenue into Greenpoint. The road gives the hill back and the streets tighten up, so watch your line through the turns instead of your watch.

Manhattan Avenue to McGuinness Boulevard, then the ramp up onto the Pulaski Bridge. A level mile that ends right where halfway waits, which makes it the right place to be honest about whether the first half was patient enough.

Over the Pulaski, halfway goes by on the span, and Queens begins at Vernon Boulevard and 48th Avenue. Flat, short-blocked and fast underfoot: take stock now, because the second half of this course is nothing like the first.

44th Drive and Crescent Street through Long Island City with Skyline Tower standing over you, then the turn onto the lower roadway of the Queensboro. Spend these last blocks of noise deliberately, because they are the last you will hear for a while.

The Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge, lower roadway onto the upper level, deck grading gently up, and the sound simply stops. No spectators and nothing to look at but steel: run it by feel, keep the cadence honest, and do not let the quiet talk you into pushing.

Off the bridge and hard left onto First Avenue at East 59th Street, straight into the loudest wall of sound on the course. The road drops away at the same moment, which makes this the easiest place all day to run a mile you cannot afford.

Wide and open on First Avenue, still running downhill through the Upper East Side. Bring the pace back to plan and start taking fluids seriously, because the bill for 17 and 18 arrives in the Bronx.

The avenue levels off and the crowd thins the further north you go. This is where the race turns into work, so shorten your focus to one block at a time.

First Avenue turns onto East 135th Street and up over the Willis Avenue Bridge into the Bronx. The steel deck rises a little and it is loud underfoot and empty overhead: get across, then reset.

A quick loop of the Bronx on East 138th Street and Alexander Avenue, then back over the Madison Avenue Bridge. Net downhill and mercifully short, but it is the quietest stretch since the Queensboro, so have a plan for it before you get here.

Into Harlem on Fifth Avenue by way of Mount Morris Park West and West 124th Street. The road begins to lean up and the crowds come back hard: take the energy, hold the effort.

Fifth Avenue past Mount Morris Park and West 120th Street, where the Fifth Avenue climb starts. It begins before this mile is out and keeps going through the next one, so ease the pace deliberately now instead of being forced into it later.

Straight up Fifth Avenue alongside the park wall, the biggest single mile of climbing on the course, arriving exactly where it hurts most. Run it on effort, keep the arms driving, and hold on to the fact that it ends at 90th Street and the park gate.

Into Central Park at last, with Terrace Drive dropping away underneath you. The park rolls rather than descending cleanly, so let gravity work on the way down and keep the effort flat over the rises.

East Drive lifts one final time toward Grand Army Plaza, the sharpest short pitch of the day, then puts you out onto Central Park South past The Plaza Hotel. Flat, deafening and nearly done: hold your form through the last turn back into the park for the finish on West Drive beside Tavern on the Green.