This is a milestone year for the New York City Marathon : Sunday’s race will be the 50th anniversary of the five-borough course, which was first run in 1976.

From its inaugural year in 1970, the race was held in Central Park. But five men—Ted Corbitt, Fred Lebow, George Spitz, Percy Sutton, and George Hirsch—spearheaded an effort to change the course to run through each of the city’s five boroughs, starting in Staten Island and ending in Manhattan.

Only one of the “trailblazers,” as the New York Road Runners calls them, is still alive. At 92, George Hirsch has seen the NYC Marathon develop from a fringe race in Central Park to the largest marathon in the world .…