Today is Halloween, I am aware. However, there is something about fall weather in New York that gets people thinking about one thing in particular: The Marathon (We don’t call it the ING New York City Marathon. We’re New Yorkers, there is no need to modify. We live in the City, we eat pizza and cheesecake, and we run in the Marathon). This weekend, I am running the Marathon. A mixture of excitement and fear has been welling up for weeks. This will not be my first marathon, but it will be my first marathon in my hometown. To help with my training, I was recently given the opportunity to take a running tour around my fair city with City Running Tours, which popped up in a post this time last year

I've always said that running in a city is the best way to see it. However, when Michael Gazaleh, the president and founder of City Running Tours offered to take me on a tour of the city, I was skeptical. Typically, I like to play tour guide to the non-natives I know, pointing out architectural trivia and gesturing to my favorite watering holes. However, I love any NYC history I can get and a part of me wanted to know what it was to be toured around my own city. And anyway, it fit perfectly into my training schedule.

Michael was only too happy to oblige. Michael comes from Brooklynite parents and, despite being a New Jersey native, he confesses to being “very pro-New York.” Living in the city and working as a chiropractor, the idea for the business came when he, as a runner, was asked to show a visitor a good running route. The day was a success and the business traveler asked for a second run the next day.

Within a year of its founding, three years ago, City Running Tours had taken on “a stable” of runners who could accommodate schedules, paces, and distances for any guest. Each tour is entirely customizable. Travelers—and especially business travelers—to New York wanted a way to maintain their training while also seeing the city. In even the nicest, expense-account hotels, a treadmill is just a treadmill. After two years and many offers, Michael finally allowed CRT to expand, bringing it to Chicago, DC, Charleston, Austin, and San Diego. Though New York City is far and away the most popular and profitable, I hope to tour Chicago in November.

Michael met me on Chambers Street around 8am. We headed west and, after a short walk past manic commuters and some of the City’s Sisyphean construction, we started running through Battery Park city. I have to admit, I had never been through this part of the city. It was my first view of Castle Clinton at Manhattan’s southernmost tip. Through quickened breaths, I learned some the castle’s history as a fort, an aquarium, and even a beer hall! I love this city.

We continued on to Wall St. where Michael dropped more historic knowledge on me. Of particular interest was the architectural history he knew, and it was clear he had a great image of what the city was and how all the parts fit together along a timeline. We ran on, heading west slightly in order to head up the ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge. In between hearing stories about the bridge’s architect, planning, and construction, I had to stop Michael and make a slightly embarrassing admission: I had never crossed the Brooklyn Bridge on foot. Michael hid his shock well and admitted his delight at having shown a native something new. I mean, honestly, as a well-jaded New Yorker, why would I walk across the bridge when I can take a subway?

After a brief respite in what I now know is Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park—which is hard to imagine as a State Park and which Michael affectionately referred to as the “beach”—we ran through the shorefront streets, uneven from the paving stones and old trolley tracks, and up the ramp of the Manhattan Bridge. Running across this blue, utilitarian neighbor of the elegant marvel of the Brooklyn Bridge was another first for me. I’d crossed on the subway plenty of times, and it was from here that I was afforded the best views of my city—the bridge, the river, the skyscrapers, the seaport, the ferries—and realized how much life this place has, and why I love it so.

On Sunday, I’ll take on the City in another way, pitting my body and mind against it while also trying with all my might to soak in the sights and the crowds of New Yorkers, transplanted urbanites, and visitors as they band together for a race that serves only to connect the five boroughs and all their history. Running so often serves as an escape and a means to unwind and decompress, yet it is not all catharsis. It is still the best way to see a city, and that intake of information and appreciation of my home was only increased by taking a running tour.

Many thanks to Michael and City Running Tours. See you all on the course this Sunday!