This year’s Chicago Marathon is shaping up to be the biggest in its 46 year history, with a reported 50,000 entrants at the start line in Millennium Park on Sunday morning.
Matt Brusich will not be one of them.
The resident of the Lincoln Park neighbourhood in Chicago’s north end will instead be recovering from a decidedly lower scale event that also may be even more punishing: a marathon he’s organized for himself, with a course that loops around his neighbourhood block a little more than 79 times.
Brusich, who has run the real Chicago Marathon in the past, concocted the idea for a micro, one-block, one-man version because he likes to do “silly and stupid things,” as he told local media on Thursday.
The runner and IT specialist also said that sitting on his front porch and watching the thousands of athletes from around the world stream past his home each October has become one of this favorite days of the year.
The Chicago Marathon is one of the World Marathon Majors, and with over a million spectators lining the streets to cheer runners on, including Brusich. The event fully takes over the city and has become a sort of informal holiday with a festival-like atmosphere all weekend long, so it’s unsurprising that the resident and runner wouldn’t want to miss the experience.
And so, torn between his love of running and his civic pride, he decided to get creative in having it all on the same weekend.
Behold, Brusich’s master plan for “A Homegrown Marathon”:
While the more well known marathon this weekend in Chicago will provide runners with a tour of much of the sprawling city, Brusich’s A Homegrown Marathon course totals exactly 0.3303 miles. And perhaps out of respect for The Chicago Marathon, he’s given his event a decidedly more humble moniker.
Brusich is well aware that running the same 531.5-meter loop, with the same four turns again and again, will be both gruelling and bizarre. “It’s something really silly and stupid,” Brusich admitted to local site Block Club Chicago. “But I’m silly and stupid, so it fits.”
Brusich says that the race will start “after his morning BM” and end when it ends—although Brusich the race director has imposed a six-hour, fifteen minute cut-off time on Brusich the runner. And the former also went out of his way to make sure the course is measured and sanctioned by USATF, just in case he sets some sort of bizarre record on race day, like most bathroom breaks at home while running a marathon. You can check the certification right here. It’s quite the read.
At the core of Brusich’s plan is a fundraiser with some pretty fun incentives for both donors and the lone runner himself. He’s created “buckets” you can contribute to, and if a certain amount is achieved for a bucket, it will unlock a ridiculous stunt Brusich must perform for a particular lap. You can trigger him to “skip to my Liou” on the 11th lap, or run backwards on lap 21. You can also compel him to provide a passerby with a pig back ride on the 31st lap, or slide into a banana suit for his 51st go around the Block. Loop 61 could see him “sing a song” (with an encore, no less). And you can pay to have Brusich pelted with water balloons on lap 71, which may be welcomed if the weather is warm on Saturday.
You can also try to predict Brusich’s finishing time, with the closest guess splitting the raffle winnings with the charity. He gives you some direction, by sharing that he’s finished the actual Chicago Marathon in 5:14:29 (back in 2012), has been steadily training and doing long runs in preparation for A Homegrown Marathon, logging more than 300 miles throughout the summer in preparation for his 79 spins around the block. Although, Brusich says that he has yet to actually run the loop in training, and is saving the experience for race day (although he does walk his dog around the block pretty much every night).
Brusich says he’s ready, and encourages anyone who is in the area on Saturday to come out and cheer him on. He said that his goal is to finish the race in under the race director’s firm cutoff time, and to lean into the ridiculousness of it all, while raising a sizeable amount of money for a good cause.
All the money Brusich raises will be donate Lincoln Park Community Services, a local charity that works with the unhoused in the area. “I’m very, very fortunate to call Lincoln Park home,” he told local media. “And if I can do a little something to raise awareness and funds for the homeless population here, then it’s a win-win.”
So if you happen to be near 2016 Cleveland on Saturday, Oct. 12, you might just see that other marathon in Chicago unfold.
