The New York City Marathon isn't a hilly course in the way a trail race or a mountain-town marathon is hilly — there's no single sustained climb that defines the day. What it has instead is a rolling profile built almost entirely around bridges: five separate crossings, each adding a short, sharp rise and fall to a route that otherwise runs through relatively flat city streets. The net effect is a course that never lets you settle into a completely flat rhythm, and that adds up more than the modest overall terrain would suggest. The exact elevation numbers for this course are in the data card above this guide; what follows is where those climbs actually happen and what they feel like underfoot.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge: the biggest climb comes first

The race's most significant single climb arrives in the opening minutes, as the course rises onto the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn. It's a sustained uphill grade tackled before most runners have settled into pace, followed by a descent back to sea level on the Brooklyn side. Because it comes so early, the temptation is to attack it or, just as often, to overcorrect and hold back too much — either way, it's worth having a plan for this specific stretch before the gun goes off.

A relatively flat middle: Brooklyn and Queens

After the bridge descent, the course settles into its flattest extended stretch through Brooklyn — Fourth Avenue, Lafayette Avenue, and on toward Williamsburg and Greenpoint — with only minor rolls rather than any real climbing. The brief pass through Queens on the way to the next bridge is similarly gentle. This is the section of the course where fitness and pacing discipline matter more than terrain, since the road itself asks relatively little.

The Queensboro Bridge: a quiet second climb

The next real elevation change comes on the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, roughly in the middle third of the race. It's a steady, enclosed climb on the bridge's lower roadway, run without the spectator noise found almost everywhere else on the course — a combination that makes the grade feel more demanding than its actual pitch, especially with over half the race already behind you.

Two more short climbs late: the Bronx bridges

Later in the race, the course adds two more short rises crossing into and out of the Bronx — first the Willis Avenue Bridge, then, after a brief loop through the borough, the Madison Avenue Bridge back into Manhattan. Neither is long, but both land deep enough into the race that they test legs that have already absorbed several thousand strides of accumulated fatigue, bridge climbs included.

Central Park's rolling close

The final miles bring one more test: Central Park's drives roll gently rather than running flat, with a noticeable rise as the course approaches the finish after Fifth Avenue climbs out of Harlem. It isn't a dramatic climb on paper, but arriving at any incline this late in a marathon changes how it feels underfoot.

For a strategy built around exactly where these climbs fall, see RaceRove's pacing guide for this race — the short version is that the bridges reward even effort over even pace, since holding a flat pace on a rolling course usually means overexerting on every climb.

Why the bridges matter more than the numbers suggest

On paper, none of this course's individual climbs looks dramatic next to a genuinely mountainous marathon. What makes New York's profile feel harder in practice is repetition and placement: five separate rises spread across the full distance, arriving at points in the race where fatigue is already building rather than bunched together early when legs are fresh. A course with one big hill lets you plan around a single effort; a course with five smaller ones scattered through the back half asks for sustained discipline instead.

That's also why elevation charts for this race can be misleading if you read them in isolation. Two courses with similar total climbing can feel completely different depending on where that climbing falls — and New York consistently places its bridge climbs at exactly the moments when a flatter course would be offering a break.