Bank of America Chicago Marathon

About This Event

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is the biggest single-day sporting event Chicago hosts, full stop — the 48th running goes off Sunday, October 11, 2026, with a record 55,000-plus runners registered and more than a million spectators expected along the 26.2-mile course. You don't need a bib to be part of it: free to watch anywhere on the route, and the finish-line scene in Grant Park is one of the best free shows the city puts on all year.

It started small. A handful of running-club members met at the LaSalle Street YMCA in 1976, and the first race — then called the Mayor Daley Marathon — drew 4,200 runners the following September. It's run every year since, except 1987 (a half-marathon only that year) and 2020 (COVID). By 2006 it was a founding member of the World Marathon Majors alongside Boston, London, Berlin, and New York, and the course — famously flat through the Loop and 29 neighborhoods from Lakeview to Chinatown — has since produced both current world records: Kelvin Kiptum's 2:00:35 in 2023 and Ruth Chepngetich's 2:09:56 in 2024.

Worth knowing if you're spectating, not running: street closures start around 7 AM and roll back open neighborhood by neighborhood through the afternoon, so take the CTA or Metra, not a car. Boystown, around Mile 8, turns into an actual street party — music, costumes, a much rowdier crowd than you'd expect from a road race — and 18th Street in Pilsen is another locals-favorite spot, but get there early; both fill in fast.