Looking for a bit of run-spiration to keep you going during this cold winter week leading into Sunday’s NYRR Fred Lebow Manhattan Half Marathon?
Fred Lebow is a running legend in New York City whose accomplishments as the president of New York Road Runners and the race director of the New York City Marathon from 1972 until 1994 are among the foundations that make running in this city such a great experience.
CHRC is co-sponsoring the Museum of the City of New York (MCNY)’s Fred Lebow Week programs accompanying their exhibition, The New York City Marathon: The Great Race (closes March 8). CHRC Members get $10 discount tickets using the code RUN3 at the following events this week. See you there!
Run this City: The Highs and Lows of Running in New York
Thursday, January 21 at 6:30 pm
What makes New York City one of the great running capitals of the world? Are there hidden runners’ gems in this city? Join journalist Liz Robbins and Mary Wittenberg, former president of NYRR for a conversation about the New York runner’s soul. They’ll discuss how runners define this city – and how NYC defines them.
Liz Robbins is the author of A Race Like No Other: 26.2 Miles Through the Streets of New York(2009). A former sportswriter (and current cyclist), she now covers immigration for The New York Times’ Metro section.
Mary Wittenberg headed New York Road Runners for over a decade; she is now the Global CEO of Virgin Sport.
Run for Your Life Film Screening with Judd Ehrlich and George Hirsch
Saturday, January 23 at 3:00 pm
Fred Lebow, a Romanian immigrant to New York fleeing the chaotic aftermath of World War II, was an unlikely leader of the city’s running revolution. He fell in love with the sport on his first run around the Central Park Reservoir and from there joined the New York Road Runners in the late 1960s when it was just a small club run out of its members’ apartments. By 1970, under his leadership, the Road Runners founded the New York City Marathon and have since grown the race into the marquis event that it is today. In celebration of the Fred Lebow Manhattan Half, join us for a screening of Run for Your Life, a documentary film chronicling Lebow’s life with archival footage and exclusive interviews.
The movie will be followed by a conversation with its Emmy Award winning director, Judd Ehrlich and George Hirsch, a founder of the five-borough NYC Marathon in 1976 and Chairman of the Board of the New York Road Runners, about how Lebow’s tenacity and passion for running united a divided city and sparked a worldwide fitness boom.