Around 50,000 runners are gearing up for the 49th annual New York Road Runners TCS Marathon Sunday. They streamed into the Javits Center Thursday morning to collect shirts, micro-chipped bibs with their race numbers and information about race day. 

It's the largest marathon in the world and runners hail from across the city, as well as from 125 countries, according to New York Road Runners. Along the race route some 10,000 volunteers will hand out snacks and drinks to participants, and an expected 1 million spectators will line the route, which starts in Staten Island, snakes across the five boroughs and ends in Central Park. 

"When I ran the one time before I had such a great experience," said 38-year-old Alissa Schaible, who lives on the Upper West Side. It's been 11 years — and three kids — since her last race. "The crowds in New York are just so amazing. I hadn't even finished and was like, 'Oh I'm going do this again sometime." 

Runners from Peru, Israel, England drifted around the expo hall trying on merchandise and sampling energy goo and hydration elixirs. Many said they were carbo-loading.

"Rice, rice, more rice and more noodles," said 41-year-old Wei-te Lu, who's in town with friends from Taiwan for his fourth New York City marathon.

Antonio Quiñones,35, from Harlem, said it will be his first marathon ever. He's running for Achilles, a charity that supports runners with disabilities. He learned about the group through a friend who volunteers as a guide. 

"That kind of inspired me to do it," he said. "I thought it was far out of my reach. But anything's possible so now I'm gonna do this marathon for the first time."