Meet the 83-year-old New Yorker running his 51st NYC Marathon, 116th overall

Some running organizations estimate that less than 1% of the global population has run a marathon since the year 2000. The 2026 TCS New York City Marathon will mark marathon number 116 for 83-year-old Upper West Sider, David Obelkevich.

After growing up in an active family in Binghamton, New York, attending college at Columbia University is what brought Obelkevich to New York City in the 1960s. He ran his first marathon in 1974 on a whim when the race was run only in Central Park.

According to the New York Road Runners, he is the only person to have completed every single New York City Marathon since 1976 when the race expanded to all five boroughs.

His total marathon count reaches into the hundreds when including other cities like Boston and Tokyo.

The former public school teacher, father and grandfather says it's the people he's met along the way that keep him running, including his wife, Lyn.

"She was coming towards me and I was going up, so I said, 'Hi Lyn,' and she said, 'Hi Dave,'" Obelkevich said. "Fell in love with her during that date."

Obelkevich's streak has gone uninterrupted even through a blood clot in his leg in 2020. He recalls his fastest time was two hours and 40 minutes in 1982, eight years after his first marathon. Though he doubts that he'll ever meet those numbers again, his advice for first-time runners is, what matters is that you finish, no matter how slow.

"If I run a quarter of a mile, I get completely out of breath. So my walking is going to be what I do in the marathon," Obelkevich said with a laugh while walking in Central Park. "That's OK. Other people walk too ... Anyone can start it, but it takes a good person to finish."

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