The first Sunday in November is a yearly love letter to New York City.

It takes the form of the New York City Marathon, which has crisscrossed all five boroughs since 1976, when roughly 2,000 people started the race and just over 1,500 finished.

This year, that love letter is being penned by 50,000 runners, 12,000 volunteers and hundreds of thousands of spectators dotting the 26.2-mile course.