The first Sunday of November starts early in New York. Over 55,000 runners make the commute by bus and ferry from across the region to Staten Island's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge for the world’s largest marathon.

Truthfully, the marathon wasn’t on my mind at all when I booked this trip. I knew that I had a very short window and wanted to see as much of the city as one can reasonably see in about 36 hours so I did my usual pre-trip browse of YouTube travel vlogs for things that interested me (namely bookstores, cafes, and good places for photos). Most of those plans got thrown to the side when I saw runner and fitness vlogger Kris Hui posting about her marathon prep and sure enough the dates worked out that I would be on an Amtrak train to Penn Station the afternoon before the big race.