Lucy Weld is turning 18 on marathon Sunday.
The Nightingale-Bamford School senior, who lives on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, will line up as one of the youngest runners in the 50-year history of the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1 — her birthday. Race rules bar anyone under 18 from the 26.2-mile course, an age floor the New York Road Runners established in 1988, so Weld’s first eligible year and her milestone arrived as one.
“Running it on my birthday, I feel like I have to do it!” Weld told The Post ahead of race day.
The teenager is racing on behalf of her $71,000-a-year private school, which fields a marathon team of alumni and faculty to raise money for The Pine Ridge School in South Dakota. That institution, the only all-girls school on a Native American reservation, has long been Nightingale-Bamford’s partner. Weld breaks new ground as the first current student ever to join the school’s marathon ranks.
“I’m really excited! I’m a little bit nervous, but I feel like it’s really cool to have that under my belt,” she said.
Weld’s path to the starting line on Staten Island wove through years of childhood spectating near the Central Park finish line, where the stream of finishers captivated her even as street closures complicated her own soccer schedule. The road blockages were a headache, she recalled, but the spectacle took hold.
That soccer commitment delivered its own climax just this past Wednesday. Weld, who plays winger, captained her team to its first league championship in 13 years — a victory squeezed into the same week as her marathon debut.
“I really do enjoy running and — this sounds really cliché — but I enjoy challenging myself and I feel like this is the ultimate way to do that physically,” she explained.
Among the more than 60,000 entrants this year, Weld’s birthday timing makes her the youngest competitor. The overall youngest-ever finisher remains Wesley Paul, who ran the inaugural 1977 marathon at age 8, before the age restriction existed.
The final stretch along Fifth Avenue looms largest in Weld’s anticipation. “This is where I normally run, so it’ll be familiar to me. But I’ve also just heard that the crowds and energy there are incredible and so I’m really looking forward to that!” she shared.
Recovery will come before celebration. Weld plans a quiet family dinner at home for her actual birthday, with a real party deferred until the following week once her legs have recovered from the five-borough trek.