Marathon Magic

In town for the New York City Marathon?

Here are three iconic activities to add to your marathon weekend, all of which let you take in the beauty of New York without doing too much walking.

Take in city views from the water

The private New York City Ferry Service is one of the best-kept secrets in New York City, in my humble opinion 😊. For $4.50 a ticket, you can see incredible views of the NYC skyline, including the Brooklyn and Queensboro Bridges—the latter of which you’ll be running over soon enough—all while sitting on the top-floor of an open-air boat taking in all the sights and smells of NYC.

There are several routes you can take—here’s the ferry map and schedule—and tickets include one free transfer to another line, as long as you do it within two hours. My favorite route is the Soundview ferry from Wall Street to East 90th. It takes about 30 minutes and gives you up-close views of the Manhattan skyline, including the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building and the United Nations, among others.

Once you get to the East 90th stop, you can get off and walk about 1 mile west to Central Park where you can visualize that marathon finish.

Or, if you’d rather spend as much time off your feet as possible, you can transfer to the Astoria line at the East 90th stop and either take that all the way back down to Wall Street—this line takes a slightly different route than the Soundview ferry so you’ll get different views—or get off at any of the stops in Queens, Roosevelt Island, Brooklyn or 34th Street in Manhattan if you want to do more sightseeing.

Walk the High Line

Ok, ok, I know I promised activities without a lot of walking, but here, you’d be walking for a purpose. Plus, you need to shake out those legs anyway! As you head to the expo at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, take the scenic route by walking the High Line, an elevated park built upon an old railroad line. In fact, you can still see some of the original tracks as you walk the 1.45-mile greenway.

With plenty of entrance/exit points—check out the park map here—you can walk as much (or as little) as you’d like. There’s plenty of greenery as well as skyline and river views, and fancy schmancy apartments you can admire. If you walk north all the way to the end of the High Line at CSX Transportation Gate, you’ll come out at 34th Street, just one block away from the Javits Center.

See the Statue of Liberty

Yes, it’s true: You’ll be able to see the Statue of Liberty as you’re running that first mile across the spectacular Verrazano Bridge, but seeing her up close and personal is awe-inspiring.

While tickets to walk to the top of the crown usually sell out before marathon weekend, you can typically get same-day tickets to Liberty Island where you can either walk around the base of Lady Liberty or pay 30 cents more per ticket to see the inside of the pedestal (i.e., the thing she stands on).

All tickets, which range from $29-32.30, include the roundtrip boat ride to the grounds of the Statue of Liberty, plus the Ellis Island Immigration Museum on Ellis Island. Tours start as early as 9am and you can buy tickets here or at the ferry terminal.

The excursion usually takes about three hours and while it’s always nice to catch the sunset on the water, note that the 2pm departure slot and any time slots after that won’t leave you enough time to visit Ellis Island.

Enjoy your time in this beautiful city this weekend!