NYC Marathon Volunteer Celebrates 50 Years of Helping Runners Chase Glory

Nearly 60,000 runners will tackle the 26.2-mile New York City Marathon course on Sunday, Nov. 1, with the finish line likely to command most of the attention. For Joanne Navarra, however, the race’s true energy is found at the starting line, where every kind of human emotion comes together.

“You know, it’s more exciting than the finish because you have everybody at one time,” Navarra said. “It’s like an adrenaline rush.”

The 2026 race marks the 50th anniversary of the marathon’s five-borough route. The milestone is especially personal for Navarra, who is also celebrating five decades as the lead volunteer at the start village in Fort Wadsworth.

“I would never have thought the first year I was there that I’d still be doing this 50 years later, but I enjoy it,” she said.

On Oct. 24, 1976, during New York City’s U.S. Bicentennial celebrations, the marathon starting line shifted from Central Park to Staten Island. The new route carried runners over five bridges and through Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan.

The event was far smaller then than the sprawling start village runners know today. Just 2,090 people participated, each paying a $5 entry fee, with a modest volunteer team supporting the race.

“It was like just a local race. You went to Fort Wadsworth and you signed up to run. My husband wanted to run. I said, ‘You’re out of your mind. What are you talking about?’” Navarra recalled. “I said, ‘Well, what am I going to do?’ So I started volunteering and helping them.”

Navarra could not have known that the decision would launch a decades-long adventure for both her and her husband, Victor, a lieutenant with the New York City Fire Department.

“It just grew bigger and bigger, and our roles grew bigger and bigger,” Navarra said. “I think it was maybe after about three years that [race co-founder and organizer] Fred Lebow said, ‘You guys can run the whole start.’ And that’s what we did.”

She even ran the marathon herself several times, first volunteering in the early morning before rushing to the back of the starting line in time to compete.

Over the years, Joanne and Victor Navarra helped New York Road Runners turn race-day logistics into a highly organized operation. They recruited volunteers, arranged corrals and guided runners toward the starting line at the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, becoming essential to the race’s launch.

The marathon changed for Navarra after Victor died in 2007 from paranasal sinus cancer, a disease attributed to his volunteer work at Ground Zero following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since then, maintaining their marathon tradition has become one of the most important ways she keeps his memory alive.

“It was a passion for him. And he loved the start because it was everybody together,” Navarra said. “Up until his dying day, he was going to be at that marathon.”

Being there became one of Victor’s final wishes. After doctors told him he had only months to live, he wrote down the experiences he still hoped to have.

“The last goal was he was going to be at that marathon. Come hell or high water, he was going to be at the marathon,” Navarra said. “At that marathon he was blind, he had no idea what he looked like, but he was there and he could barely talk. He had said to me, ‘If something happened to me before that, just put me on ice.’”

Nineteen years later, Navarra remains at the center of the operation. In the days before the race, she supervises construction of the start village, meets with volunteers to review race-day procedures and hands out trash and donation bags for cleanup in the corrals.

By 8:30 a.m. on race morning, she will be 85 feet above the ground in the bucket of an FDNY truck, overseeing the starting area and issuing instructions from above despite her fear of heights. Victor, she says, would have found that amusing.

“He knows how much I hate heights, and I still hate them. I hate even getting on the stepladder,” Navarra said. “I think he’d be proud that I’ve continued to do it and kept all the relationships going.”

On Nov. 1, nearly 2,000 volunteers will gather at the start village under Navarra’s direction. The occasion will celebrate more than the runners; it will also honor the woman who has spent 50 years making the starting line a welcoming place—with no end to her work in sight.

“You don’t really see a sad face. It’s just nice to see everybody all together and having a good time,” Navarra said.