If you were in Manhattan this past Sunday for the New York City Half, unless you groggily happened across the course itself while walking to grab a coffee, got caught in the ensuing road closure traffic, or were a participant, you could be excused for not knowing there was a race featuring nearly 30,000 people taking place in America’s largest city.

Not to nitpick the NYC Half, which is always a great production that lures plenty of big names—like this year’s winners, Sharon Lokedi and Abel Kipchumba—but when a race is placed in direct comparison with one of the world’s most iconic (ahem, the New York City Full Marathon), we have to grade on a steep curve.

The great road races of the world come with inherent stakes. There’s history. Or they’re a spectacle that captivates people outside of our dorky running bubble. Or they attract enough talent that they settle a score—namely, answering the question “who’s the best at this?”

This isn’t to say that no half marathon has ever involved stakes, or had a rich history, or provided a spectacle to the masses, or included fields so terrific they cannot be ignored. But sometimes, the “half”-ness of it all overshadows all the good things. For athletes, for fans, for the sport’s powerbrokers, the half marathon always feels like a bit of an afterthought.

So what’s its deal? We’re not trying out standup or offering rhetorical questions. Seriously. What’s the point of the half marathon? We’re sincerely asking!

Is it a stepping stone distance designed to lure tracksters sensing the sting dissipating from their once-lethal finishing kicks?

Is it a default race-as-a-workout, the ideal final hard effort before a big target marathon?

Is it a tweener distance with its own specialists, who are doomed to distance running obscurity while most of the prize money and a little bit of glory goes to the marathoners and 10,000m stars, respectively?

Or is it a play by Big Road Race to lure more mass participation-types out to the tarmac, all so they can shell out a few more race entries and slap a “13.1” bumper sticker on their car?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes (the first half marathon wasn’t contested until the 1950s).

Each of these justifications for the half marathon’s existence is totally fine. But together, they can make for a muddled event—at least from a storytelling standpoint—that populates the global racing calendar but rarely receives the spotlight. Short of a multi-time Olympic medalist on the track making their half debut, it’s rare for the distance to generate any sort of buzz ahead of time. And unless somebody breaks a national or world record, stretching out headlines past a few days can be a challenge.

So what do we do about it? We like the half marathon and don’t want it to disappear. But we do wish it carried a bit more weight when contested.

The half’s inclusion in the World Road Running Championships is a great start. The championship event as a whole has demonstrated its ability to attract top talent. But a global championship is not a guarantee of clout— without checking, do you remember the winners in the half in Riga?

(Apologies to any Sabastian Sawe or Peres Jepchirchir superfans…)

We’re all about solutions here at The Lap Count. (And we love proposals that tinker with circuits.) So let’s conclude with something that we think would work to make the half marathon count for something: the World Half Marathon Tour.

World Athletics loves a circuit— albeit with mixed results (the Diamond League still carries far more clout than the World Indoor Tour, let’s be honest). But in addition to NYC, there are plenty of popular and worthy 13.1-mile races around the world who would benefit from some loose organization. The Great North Run in the UK is the largest half in the world by number of participants. The Delhi Half boasts a fast course and is located in a part of the world not currently featured in the WMM circuit. And given that Spain has quickly become a road-running mecca in recent years, Valencia deserves its moment in the sun.

Schedule-wise, a half marathon or three is easy to slot into a marathon buildup or wrap around a track and field schedule. And a shorter recovery time than the marathon means that dedicated road warriors could, if they wanted, contest far more than the traditional spring/fall double.

A race like the NYC Half taking on global implications wouldn’t immediately level it up to World Marathon Major status or impact, but it’s a step worth exploring. And the next time someone asks “what’s the point?” the answer gets a little more interesting.

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