Going to the windy city

The thing with the Abbott World Marathon Majors (Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York and Tokyo) is that there are no way to just sign up for a spot, but instead you have to gain access by other methods. Among other methods there are donations to charities, meeting a qualifying time, a ballot draw or getting a spot through a partnered travel agent.

The donations required to be taken into consideration are usually in the equivalent 100s or more often 1000s of USD. The qualifying times are strict enough that if you just run casually you won’t really have a chance to reach the cut-off time. In the ballot draw you have, depending on race, between a 4% and 50% chance to get picked (Boston differs as they don’t have a ballot). So in the end, for a runner like me, most of the time the only realistic chance I have is going with a travel agency and as I am not the only one in that situation many of these departures are often sold out several years in advance.

But at times you are allowed to be lucky. Chicago has the highest chance in the ballot (50-ish percent) and it fortunately went my way this year. So added to the marathon in Calgary and the SuperHalfs Chicago is now on the list for 2020’s runs.

7^th – 9^th of October

Flying out to Chicago (yes, it’s two days after coming back from Cardiff) and spending some time in the city. I have never been there before so it’s going to be new for me. For ease I booked a hotel close to the start and finish line of the marathon which puts me in downtown (in The Loop, for those who knows Chicago) which means getting back will be a breeze – relatively, at least. No up and down stairs to subways as in New York, at least.

10^th of October

The International Chicago 5K run is in the morning which brings us on a short 5km course round downtown, ending up near the marathon’s finish line. The afternoon will be spent on relaxing and (mentally) preparing for the marathon tomorrow.

11^th of October

Race day. The first wave with wheelchairs gets started at 0720 and from 0730 and the following hour the three runner waves will be sent off. The race starts in Millennium Park and after circling downtown we go north to Uptown before returning to downtown and heading west. This will be a few kilometres before we return back and circle south through the University Village, Little Italy and Pilsen before heading south through Chinatown to Bronzeville, returning up north finishing in Grant Park, bordering Millennium Park to the south. The course is relatively flat (seems like there is a variance of app. 10 meters) so for a marathon it doesn’t seem like a technically hard course. The rest of the day will obviously be spent on relaxing and recovering.

12^th – 13^th of October

Flying out the 12^th in the evening means I have most of the day to walk around while being sore.

The Chicago marathon has around 45.000 runners each year which makes it one of the big ones, on par with Berlin and New York – but being one of the Marathon Majors it does attract a lot of runners in general. The small ones can be fun but participating in a big run just has a completely different feeling and something I am looking forward to experiencing again. And it’s just a plus that it’s in a city I haven’t visited before.