In a sport where national and world records are regularly getting shattered, there should be more people watching.

Such is the philosophy of Dave Taylor, a longtime local runner on a mission to make watching major marathons as much of a communal activity as catching this weekend’s college football matchups. For next month’s New York City Marathon, Taylor is teaming up with Mt. Holiday, Fleet Feet Traverse City, the Traverse City Track Club (TCTC), and New Balance for a “watch and prediction party” – a model he hopes will generate more enthusiasm for elite running in northern Michigan.

Taylor, a former TCTC board president and Bayshore Marathon race director, describes himself as “a big running geek.” It’s a quality he shares with his wife Lisa, who served for years as both the girls track and cross country coach at Traverse City Central High School and the executive director of TCTC. When a big marathon comes along, be it a world major like New York or an elites-only contest like the Olympic Trials, the Taylors treat it like the Super Bowl.

“For a while, we’ve been inviting a group of people to our houses for these big races,” Taylor says. “We would start it with a prediction run in our neighborhood. And then people brought all sorts of brunch food, and we had several TVs going with the race on, and we would put up a big board where people would write down not only their prediction run time, but also who they thought was going to win the marathon, their prediction for the winning time, etc. It was just a fun morning of socializing, with a little bit of running and cheering included.”

As the events grew – “We’d often have 30 or more people come over to our house,” Taylor says – the Taylors wondered if their watch parties might have broader appeal. TCTC, after all, is the largest running club in Michigan, with upwards of 900 members.

“I always thought, ‘Oh, it would be fun to see if we could do this on a more public basis,’” Taylor says of the watch parties. After approaching a few bar and restaurant owners, though, he hit upon the challenge.

“I realized that the places in Traverse City that would have great TVs for watching sports aren't necessarily breakfast places, and the places that have breakfast food tend not to have TVs,” he says.

Then, while doing some volunteer work for Mt. Holiday earlier this year, it struck Taylor that the ski hill could be the perfect venue.

“They have the restaurant. They have a fun lodge environment. They've got big screen TVs. And they have trails that are all self-contained, so we can do the prediction run without needing to get a permit,” Taylor says. “So, I threw it out to them as an idea, they were into it, and now we're giving this a try.”

The First Annual New York City Marathon Watch and Prediction Party is scheduled for Sunday, November 2, kicking off at 7:30am with the 5K prediction run. The watch party and breakfast buffet will follow at 8:30am, to coincide with the 8:35am start time of the professional women’s division at the New York City Marathon. The pro men’s race starts at 9:05am, with the first wave of non-professional runners to follow at 9:10am.

The Mt. Holiday bar will be open throughout, and registrants can win prizes based on the accuracy of their predictions. 

While Taylor isn’t sure if the party will attract casual runners or non-runners, he hopes prizes will get them more engaged in following running as a professional sport. While it doesn’t have the cultural dominance of football, Taylor notes that marathoning has seen near-super-human feats of athleticism in recent years, including new world records on both the men’s side (the late Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya, who clocked a 2:00:35 marathon at the Chicago Marathon in 2023) and the women’s (Ruth Chepngetich, also of Kenya, who ran a 2:09:58 at the 2024 Chicago Marathon). Just two weeks ago, also in Chicago, 28-year-old Conner Mantz clocked a 2:04:43, breaking an American record that had stood for 22 years.

“Especially because we have those storylines happening right now, I think a marathon can make for really great TV, and we want to show that off to more people,” Taylor says.

Registration information can be found here.

Photo courtesy of the TCS New York City Marathon.