Fred Lebow

Fred Lebow (June 3, 1932 - October 9, 1994) was an avid road runner, co-founder of the New York Road Runners Club and founder of the New York City Marathon. Born in Transylvania, Romania, he transformed the marathon from a small race with 55 finishers in 1970 to one of the largest marathons in the world with over 36,544 finishers in 2004.

Fred ran in the inaugural NYC marathon in 1970, finishing 45th out of 55 runners with a time of 4:12:09. His ran his last NYC Marathon in 1992, in celebration of his 60th birthday, after being diagnosed with brain cancer in early 1990. His time was 5:32:35. During his career he completed 69 marathons in 30 countries.

He was posthumously inducted into the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in 2001.

Movie

• Run For Your Life Movie about the NYC Marathon and Fred Lebow

Source

• Wikipedia

External Link

• www.distancerunning.com Hall of Fame
• www.nyrrc.org Hall of Fame induction article by Gordon Bakoulis