Chicago, United States · October
Pacing the Chicago Marathon
Flat and fast
A flat loop through the city neighbourhoods that starts and finishes in Grant Park. Fast, well supported, and one of the more reliable places to chase a personal best.
Official site: dates and entry
Dates, ballots and entry rules change every year and are not listed here. Check the official site.
How to pace it
Like Berlin, the flatness means an even pace plan is realistic. Unlike Berlin, the course turns frequently as it works through the neighbourhoods, and the turns add distance if you run them wide.
The tall buildings downtown interfere with GPS. Watches routinely over-read early, telling you that you are running faster than you are, which encourages exactly the wrong correction. Trust the kilometre and mile markers over the watch, particularly in the first few kilometres.
The second half moves through quieter stretches with less crowd noise than the start. Runners who fed off the early atmosphere often find the pace harder to hold there for no physiological reason.
Long straight avenues make up much of the middle of the race, with little to break up the effort. Without corners or gradient to mark progress the kilometres blur together, and drifting off pace in either direction is easy to miss. Thinking of the race as a sequence of named neighbourhoods rather than a number line helps more than it sounds like it should.
Worth knowing
- GPS drift among the downtown buildings makes your watch pace unreliable. Use course markers.
- A loop course means wind direction changes repeatedly rather than helping or hurting throughout.
- October in Chicago is usually cool, but warm years happen and the course has almost no shade.
What the common targets ask for
| Finish | Per km | Per mile |
|---|---|---|
| 3:00:00 | 4:16 | 6:52 |
| 3:30:00 | 4:59 | 8:01 |
| 4:00:00 | 5:41 | 9:09 |
| 4:30:00 | 6:24 | 10:18 |