Gifts for someone running the NYC Marathon

The last few weeks are the taper. The training is done and the runner is guarding their routine. Runners have a rule, nothing new on race day, so new shoes, a new watch or new shorts in October are a gift they can't use yet.

What helps is the morning. Runners reach the start at Fort Wadsworth on Staten Island by ferry or bus, often hours before their wave, and wait out in the November cold. A warm old layer they can throw away at the start is a real kindness; clothes left there are collected and donated.

The other thing that helps is taking something off their plate that week: dinner the night before, the trip to the ferry, a quiet house on Saturday night.

Download the official TCS New York City Marathon app from New York Road Runners and add your runner by name or bib number. It shows live splits and an estimate for each mile, which is how you decide where to stand.

Pick one or two spots and tell them exactly where you'll be: which avenue, which side, which corner. In a crowd this size, a runner looks for you only if they know where to look. Bright matching shirts or hats for your group help, and so does a sign with their name in big letters.

First Avenue in Manhattan, just after the Queensboro Bridge around mile 16, is the loudest stretch; the bridge itself is closed to spectators, so runners come off a long quiet climb into a wall of noise. The Bronx around mile 20 is quieter, and runners notice the people who are there. Fifth Avenue alongside Central Park, around miles 23 and 24, is where it gets hard, and a familiar face counts most. The finish area in the park is crowded and access can be limited, so don't plan on seeing them cross the line.

Every finisher gets a medal at the line, and either their checked bag or a fleece-lined finisher poncho, depending on what they chose before the race. In past years, shops and running clubs around the city have offered free medal engraving on the Monday after. Check what's on that week.

The week after is a strange low. The structure of the training is gone, everything hurts, and the day it all pointed at is over. A booked massage, a good meal or a slow walk later in the week does more than another thing on race day.

Every finisher gets the same medal. What only your runner has is the course as they ran it, the time it took, and the months of training behind it.

Laurels makes shorts embroidered with exactly that: the New York course from their own GPS track, their finish time, and the weeks it took to get there. Because a pair is drawn from the runner's own data, they connect it and approve the drawing themselves. Preorders open to runners on November 2, the morning after the race. Gifting comes after that, and the gift list is open now.