Strong winds greet New York City Marathon runners

NEW YORK — Sunday marks the 44th running of the New York City Marathon. About 50,000 runners will start – and one will emerge as the race's millionth finisher, earning lifetime entry into the race.

Meanwhile, professionals will vie for a $100,000 first-place prize. A few will try to lower the course record of 2 hours, 5 minutes, 6 seconds, set by Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya in 2011, but conditions will be tough. At 7 a.m., it was 42 degrees and winds were gusting 35 to 45 miles per hour, causing race organizers to move the wheelchair start to the Brooklyn side of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge as a safety precaution, shortening the wheelchair race by about three miles. Everyone else will start, as planned, on the Staten Island side of the bridge.

The coldest NYC Marathon on record was in 1995, when the temperature at the time of the winner's finish was 41 degrees.

Course record holder Mutai will be trying to win New York City for the third time in a row. His primary challenger, former world record holder Wilson Kipsang of Kenya, is the only runner in history to run under 2 hours, 5 minutes five times – but Kipsang has never run the hilly New York course.

Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia, another sub-2:05 marathoner, won the Boston Marathon last year and gave his medal to the city after the bombings. Also worth watching: the American Meb Keflezighi, who won Boston this year at age 38, won New York City in 2009, and captured Olympic silver in 2004.

The women's field features Mary Keitany of Kenya, the second-fastest female marathoner in history. Keitany placed third in New York two times, but has not run a marathon since placing fourth at the 2012 London Olympics.

Buzunesh Deba of Ethiopia was the New York City runner-up in 2011 and 2013. Top Americans include 2004 Olympic bronze medalist Deena Kastor, 41, who could set an American master's record if she breaks 2:28:40; Kara Goucher, who placed third here in 2008; and Desiree Linden, who placed second at Boston in 2011, losing by merely two seconds.

In the wheelchair division, American Tatyana McFadden, 25, will try to win her eighth major in a row, having already earned back-to-back victories in London, Boston, and Chicago.