5 Running Memoirs to Read After the New York City Marathon

The day after the New York City Marathon, the streets reopen and the finish-line photos start making their way around. But a race that takes hours to run takes months to prepare for, and some of its best stories begin well before anyone pins on a bib.

The November 1, 2026 TCS New York City Marathon had 61,146 finishers, according to New York Road Runners. If watching all those runners made you curious about what brings someone to the starting line, these five memoirs offer very different answers. Start with Haruki Murakami for the quiet of a long training run or Kathrine Switzer for the history of the race itself.

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1. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami

Murakami uses his preparation for the 2005 New York City Marathon as a thread through a book about two activities he has spent years doing alone: running and writing. The race gives the memoir a destination, but much of its appeal comes from the ordinary days along the way. You can see how repetition gives him room to think, and how getting older changes what he expects from a body he has long relied on.

This is the one I’d put first for readers who came for the books and stayed for the marathon. You can recognize the satisfaction Murakami finds in showing up again tomorrow even if your own version happens at a desk. Read more about Murakami’s New York City Marathon connection.

Find What I Talk About When I Talk About Running on Amazon.

2. Marathon Woman by Kathrine Switzer

Many people know the photograph from the 1967 Boston Marathon, when a race official tried to remove Switzer from the course. Her memoir lets you follow the runner in that photograph past the moment that made her famous. She won the New York City Marathon in 1974 and went on to advocate for a women’s Olympic marathon, which debuted in 1984. New York Road Runners’

Read this if the scale of today’s race made you wonder how the sport opened up to more people. The New York win makes it an especially good follow-up to race weekend, but the longer story is about what it took to create opportunities for the women coming up behind her.

Find Marathon Woman on Amazon.

3. Running While Black by Alison Mariella Désir

Désir writes about finding her way into distance running and founding Harlem Run. Her account widens into a history and critique of the sport, asking who feels safe running in public, who sees themselves represented, and what it takes to build a community where more people feel welcome.

This is the pick for anyone who spent marathon Sunday cheering in their neighborhood. For one day, the race makes the connection between runners and the streets they share easy to see. Désir pays attention to that relationship on ordinary days, when the crowds and barricades are gone.

Find Running While Black on Amazon.

4. Let Your Mind Run by Deena Kastor and Michelle Hamilton

Olympic marathon bronze medalist Deena Kastor recounts how she learned to pay attention to her own thinking as an athlete. Written with Michelle Hamilton, the memoir gives that idea a concrete setting: the middle of a hard workout or race, when a rough stretch can start to feel like a verdict on the entire effort.

Kastor is the one I’d choose if you’re still replaying a difficult mile. Her approach makes room for a smaller, more manageable question: what can you do with the stretch of road in front of you?

Find Let Your Mind Run on Amazon.

5. The Longest Race by Kara Goucher and Mary Pilon

Kara Goucher’s memoir, written with Mary Pilon, looks inside the Nike Oregon Project and traces her path to speaking out about what she experienced there. There’s a New York connection, too. Goucher finished third in her marathon debut in New York in 2008. That result gives you a sense of the career she was building as she navigated a system in which coaches and sponsors held enormous power.

Pick this one if the elite race was the part you couldn’t stop watching. Goucher gives you a view of the decisions and pressures that accumulate long before the broadcast begins.

Find The Longest Race on Amazon.

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