Course Map
Route based on 2025 course — may differ slightly from this year.
About this Race
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is a flat, fast, spectator-friendly loop that begins and ends in Grant Park and fans out through roughly two dozen distinct neighborhoods, from the Loop's skyscraper canyons to Boystown, Pilsen, and Chinatown. The pancake-flat terrain and grid-straight streets make it one of the great record and personal-best courses, rivaling Berlin for sheer speed potential. Enormous, knowledgeable crowds line nearly the entire route, and the October timing usually delivers crisp racing conditions. The only real hazards are the early-mile congestion in the tall-building shadows where GPS goes haywire, and the temptation to bank time too aggressively. It rewards disciplined pacers who want a big-city atmosphere with a course that genuinely lets them run fast.
Course Insight
Chicago is a flat loop out of Grant Park and back, stitching together dozens of neighbourhoods, and its first warning comes before you've broken a sweat: the opening miles run through the downtown canyon where skyscrapers swallow your GPS signal and your watch over-reads, convincing you you're behind pace and baiting a surge that ruins the back half — trust the official timing mats and your effort, not the beeping on your wrist. It's pancake-flat and famously fast, but where a course like Berlin curves gently, Chicago turns hard; this is a circuit of sharp ninety-degree corners, so the tangents matter enormously and tight cornering over 26 miles of right angles saves genuine distance. The crowds are relentless and almost unbroken — few marathons are this consistently lined — with the north-side neighbourhoods carrying the early miles and the noise of Chinatown around mile 21 arriving just as the legs start to question things. The course hides its only real climb for the very end: a long exposed stretch after Chinatown, and then the short, mean rise up Roosevelt Road at roughly mile 26, a cruel little wall right before the left onto Columbus Drive and the finish. Weather is the wildcard — October on the lakefront can be cool and still or unseasonably warm with a hard wind off Lake Michigan, and the forecast can rewrite your whole plan. With no terrain to hide a fast start behind, the runners who fall apart here are almost always the ones who believed those easy downtown miles were really that easy.
Difficulty Breakdown
Mostly due to very flat.
Course Details
- Course type
- Loop
- Elevation gain
- 45m
- Elevation loss
- 45m
- Highest point
- 186m
- Lowest point
- 179m
- Net drop
- -7m
- Start
- Grant Park
- Cutoff time
- 6h 30m
Course Records
Race History
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon began in 1977 as the Mayor Daley Marathon, drawing around 4,200 runners through the streets of the Windy City in its first running. Its flat, fast layout quickly made it a record-setting stage, producing world bests over the decades from runners such as Khalid Khannouchi, Catherine Ndereba, and Paula Radcliffe. In 2023 Kelvin Kiptum ran a then-world-record 2:00:35 there, and in 2024 Ruth Chepngetich broke the women's world record with 2:09:56, underscoring the course's reputation for speed. A founding member of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, it now welcomes tens of thousands of finishers each October.
Plan Your Trip
Everything you need to know to get there, get settled, and get to the start line.
- Nearest airport(s)
- Chicago O'Hare (ORD), Chicago Midway (MDW)
- Best area to stay
- The Loop for walkable proximity to Grant Park and full hotels, River North for upscale stays near the action, and Lincoln Park for charming options near the early miles.
- Getting to the start
- The start and finish are in Grant Park downtown, so walk from Loop hotels or ride the CTA 'L' to a central stop like Jackson or Monroe and walk to the corrals.