Here is our comprehensive, all-singing guide to absolutely everything you need to know about the 2026 Bank of America Chicago Marathon, whether you’re running the race, spectating, or following along from home.
The 2026 Bank of America Chicago Marathon is one of the eight Abbott World Marathon Majors, and one of only three that take place in the USA (the other two are Boston and NYC).
This year, the 48th Chicago Marathon starts in Grant Park at 7:30 a.m. CT on Sunday, October 11, and Jacob Kiplimo comes back as defending champion carrying a personal best of 2:00:28, seven seconds faster than the course record (and world record, at the time) of 2:00:35 set by the late Kelvin Kiptum here in 2023.
Organizers expect more than 55,000 runners from over 100 countries and all 50 states, drawn from a pool of more than 200,000 applicants, after last year’s race produced 54,383 finishers, the largest field in its history.
Kiplimo ran 2:02:23 to win last October and has since broken the half-marathon world record in Lisbon and finished third in the London Marathon behind Sabastian Sawe’s 1:59:30 world record. The women’s race brings back Brigid Kosgei, the two-time Chicago champion who set a world record on this course in 2019, for the first time since that run.
Let’s get into everything you need to know for the fastest WMM in North America.
2026 Chicago Marathon: Key Race Day Information
- Date: Sunday, October 11, 2026
- Start and finish: Grant Park
- Professional start: 7:30 a.m. CT
- Expected field: more than 55,000 runners
- Course time limit: 6 hours 30 minutes, which works out to 15:00 mile pace
- Course records: 2:00:35 (Kelvin Kiptum, 2023) and 2:09:56 (Ruth Chepngetich, 2024)
- Defending champions: Jacob Kiplimo (Uganda) and Hawi Feysa (Ethiopia)
2026 Chicago Marathon Start Times
Grant Park opens at 5:30 a.m., when gear check and the start corrals open. Each wave’s corrals close well before its gun, so runners in Wave 1 need to be in place by 7:20 a.m.
Check the latest on corral planning, timing and FAQs on the official race website.
- 7:20 a.m.: Wave 1 (Red) corrals close
- 7:30 a.m.: Professional men and women
- 7:35 a.m.: Wave 1, Corrals A through E
- 7:45 a.m.: Wave 2 (Blue) corrals close
- 8:00 a.m.: Wave 2, Corrals F, G, H and J
- 8:10 a.m.: Wave 3 (Orange) corrals close
- 8:35 a.m.: Wave 3, Corrals K, L, M and N
Gear check and the 27th Mile Post-Race Party both close at 4 p.m., per the organizers’ race day timeline.
How to Watch the Chicago Marathon
NBC 5 Chicago carries the race live from 7 to 11 a.m. CT, with Paul Swangard, Marion Brooks and Stefan Holt anchoring and Kara Goucher, Ed Eyestone, Carrie Tollefson and Amanda McGrory on analysis. Telemundo Chicago has the Spanish-language broadcast in the same window.
Outside the Chicago market, viewers in the U.S. can stream the four-hour broadcast on Peacock and Roku. Nbcchicago.com, telemundochicago.com and both stations’ apps keep going until 3 p.m., which is the window to watch if a friend is in a later wave.
The race is also on 104.3 The Score, 670 AM, the Audacy app and SiriusXM from 7 to 11 a.m., with Josh Liss hosting alongside Josh Cox, Jenny Spangler, Karen Lesiewicz and Chris Wehrman. International viewers abroad can find it on FloSports, Eurosport, ESPN Latin America, ESPN Brazil, the Olympic Channel, SMG China and TV Asahi.
Marathon Handbook is running its own live watch-along on our YouTube channel, starting at about 7 a.m. local time – about half an hour before the professional start, live from the Tracksmith pop-up in downtown Chicago. The show carries live commentary on the men’s and women’s elite races as they unfold, so it works on its own or as a second screen next to the NBC broadcast.
How to Track a Runner in the Chicago Marathon
The free Bank of America Chicago Marathon app, built by TCS, offers unlimited live tracking of every runner and walker on race day. It’s available to download right now, and also holds the course map and therace week schedule, so it is worth downloading before Sunday morning rather than in the corral.
The Chicago Marathon Course / Route Map
The Chicago marathon route is a loop that leaves Grant Park, takes in 29 of the city’s neighborhoods, including Lakeview, Pilsen and Chinatown, and ends back in Grant Park. Along the way it crosses the Chicago River six times, and the roads are flat enough to have produced seven world records.
There are 20 aid stations, spaced one to two miles apart, each with water, Gatorade, medical staff and portable toilets. Maurten gels are handed out at miles 12.4 and 18.1, Chiquita bananas between miles 20.2 and 23, and there is a Biofreeze cooling zone near mile 21.2.
New for 2026 are four Culligan water refill stations, (the first time the race has offered them), at Aid Station 4 (mile 5.7), Aid Station 7 (mile 10.1), Aid Station 12 (mile 15.7) and Aid Station 16 (mile 20.3).
Chicago Marathon Pacers and Cut-Off Information
The race also fields 100 pacers, with the following goal times being paced:
2:55, 3:00, 3:05, 3:10, 3:15, 3:20, 3:25, 3:30, 3:35, 3:40, 3:45, 3:50, 3:55, 4:00, 4:10, 4:20, 4:30, 4:40, 4:50, 5:00, 5:15, 5:30, 5:45 and 6:00.
There’s a pace booth at the expo where you can learn more about running with a pace group; their aim is to run an even split and do not factor in any stops or bathroom breaks.
Runners who fall behind the 15:00-per-mile cutoff pace may be moved onto the sidewalks as the streets reopen behind the race.
Chicago Marathon Weather
Typical Chicago Marathon weather features crisp morning start temperatures in the 40s to 50s°F that gradually warm into the 60s°F by midday, creating ideal conditions for distance running.
There can be extremes: 2007 saw a 88°F high recorded, while 2009 saw a 33°F starting temp – but mostly, Chicago is seen as reliably cool and fresh on marathon weekend.
CHICAGO WEATHERA week out, the forecasts point to a warm weekend, with sun through Saturday. The National Weather Service has sunshine on Friday with a high near 65 F and sunshine again on Saturday with a high near 69 F, while AccuWeather has clouds building on race day itself, with an overnight low of 61 F and a high of 70 F.
That low is what runners should pay attention to, because it sets the temperature at the start. In the official race-day records the organizers keep from O’Hare, the low was somewhere between 39 F (2019) and 51 F (last year) in five of the last six editions. The one exception was 2021, the only one of those six that started warmer than this forecast, with a low of 70 F and a high of 79 F. The hottest race in Chicago’s history was 2007, when the temperature reached 89 F with 73 percent humidity.
Forecasts this far out still move, so check again in the last couple of days before the race. Organizers also run a color-coded Event Alert System on race day that signals conditions on course, and runners should know what each color means before they start.
The Chicago Marathon Expo and Race Weekend
The Abbott Health & Fitness Expo is where runners collect their bibs, and it runs at McCormick Place, North Building, Level 3, Hall B1 (2301 S. Martin Luther King Drive):
- Thursday, Oct. 8: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Friday, Oct. 9: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Saturday, Oct. 10: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Bags go through a security screening at the door, so leave the big backpack at the hotel. The Abbott Chicago 5K starts in Grant Park on Saturday, Oct. 10, and Millennium Hall in Millennium Park holds an all-you-can-eat pasta dinner on Oct. 9 and 10, by reservation.
After the race, the 27th Mile Post-Race Party at Butler Field (Columbus Drive and Jackson Drive) runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., with a DJ and a free first beer for finishers 21 and over. Spectators can enter Grant Park from 9:30 a.m. Five Goose Island locations around the city offer discounted beer to anyone wearing a 2026 medal.
Shakeout Runs
All of the shakeout runs we have confirmed so far are free, and most of them fall on Saturday morning.
- Friday, Oct. 9, 5:30 p.m.: Peloton 5K with Tread instructor Kirsten Ferguson, from Caffè Oliva at Ohio Street Beach (550 E Grand Ave.). Check-in from 4:45 p.m., registration required.
- Saturday, Oct. 10, 8 a.m.: Arc’teryx shakeout with Chicago Athlete, a three-mile out-and-back that uses part of the marathon course, from Arc’teryx Rush Street (1007 N Rush St.).
- Saturday, Oct. 10, 9 a.m.: Marathon Handbook and Zappos 5K loop around Millennium Park, starting from Goddess and the Baker (181 W Madison St.), with coffee and pastries afterward. Registration is full.
- Saturday, Oct. 10, 9 a.m.: Cooldown’s community shakeout at the Ulysses S. Grant Monument in Lincoln Park.
- Saturday, Oct. 10, 9:30 a.m.: Endorphins Running and 3RUN2 three-miler from the Goose Island Salt Shed Pub on West Blackhawk Street.
We’ll link to a full list of planned shakeout runs and weekend events as the race approaches.
Prize Money
The full purse is $908,000 across the open and wheelchair divisions. Open division payouts are the same for men and women:
| Place | Open Division | American Division |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | $100,000 | $15,000 |
| 2nd | $75,000 | $12,000 |
| 3rd | $50,000 | $10,000 |
| 4th | $30,000 | $7,000 |
| 5th | $25,000 | $5,000 |
A course record is worth an extra $50,000, which puts 2:00:35 and 2:09:56 on the table for the open races. The top masters runner in each race earns $2,500. The open and American payouts are unchanged from last year.
Chicago Marathon’s World Records
- 2:08:05, Steve Jones (Great Britain), 1984
- 2:05:42, Khalid Khannouchi (Morocco), 1999
- 2:18:47, Catherine Ndereba (Kenya), 2001
- 2:17:18, Paula Radcliffe (Great Britain), 2002
- 2:14:04, Brigid Kosgei (Kenya), 2019
- 2:00:35, Kelvin Kiptum (Kenya), 2023
- 2:09:56, Ruth Chepngetich (Kenya), 2024
Chepngetich’s 2:09:56 still stands as the women’s marathon World Record and the course record, even though she serves a three-year doping ban. The ban did not erase her earlier results, as the failed tests that resulted in the ban took place in the spring of 2025 – there’s a lack of evidence that she was doping when she set the record.
The 2026 Chicago Marathon: Elite Men’s Race Preview
Amos Kipruto has finished one place behind Kiplimo in each of their last two marathons. He was third in Chicago in 2024, second to Kiplimo last year in 2:03:54, and fourth in London in April in 2:01:39, again one place behind the Ugandan. Kiplimo broke away at 18 miles last October and won by more than a minute and a half, and the 2:02:23 he ran is the second-fastest time in race history.
“Right now, I believe I’m capable of competing with anyone in the world, and I’m coming to Chicago with the ambition to prove it once again,” Kiplimo said when the field was announced in July.
The rest of the front of the field has real depth: six men in it have broken 2:04. Milkesa Mengesha ran 2:03:17 in Berlin in 2024, Tadese Takele won Tokyo for the second year running in March, and Bashir Abdi, the Belgian who was added to the field after finishing 10th last year, has a 2:03:36 from Rotterdam in 2021.
For American fans, the race is about Conner Mantz’s 2:04:43, the record he set on this course last year. Mantz is not in the field, but two men who could take it from him are. Charles Hicks ran 2:04:35 for seventh at the Boston Marathon in April, the second-fastest marathon ever by an American, though Boston’s point-to-point course is ineligible for records and Chicago’s is not. “It’s a place where people run fast, and I want to put myself in a position to be a part of that,” Hicks said.
Clayton Young has said plainly that he is going after the record, and he has not changed that plan since a scan in September found a 12-centimeter tear in a hamstring tendon. He ran 2:05:41 in Boston. Galen Rupp, the last American man to win in Chicago (2017), ran 2:08:15 in Boston, his fastest time since 2021, and Vinny Mauri lines up after a 2:05:54 debut at Glass City in Toledo in April.
The Chicago Marathon: Women’s Race Preview
Kosgei won Chicago in 2018 and 2019, the second time in 2:14:04, a world record that stood until Chepngetich broke it here. She has not been back since, and she arrives in form: her 2:14:29 in Tokyo in March set a course record and was her fastest run since that 2019 race, as we reported at the time.
Hawi Feysa took more than two minutes off her personal best to win last year in 2:14:57, finishing well clear of Megertu Alemu, who is back as well. “I believe it will be even more difficult this year to repeat, but I am preparing very well and am confident I will arrive at the start line in good form,” Feysa said.
Sutume Kebede, the two-time Tokyo champion, has a 2:15:55, and Sharon Lokedi brings something no one else in the field has: back-to-back Boston wins, in 2025 and again in April. She has never raced a flat major marathon, and her personal best of 2:17:22 was run on Boston’s hills in 2025.
No American woman has won Chicago since Deena Kastor in 2005. Susanna Sullivan, fourth at last year’s World Championships and a full-time sixth-grade math teacher, ran her 2:21:56 personal best here in 2024. Natosha Rogers was the top American last year in 2:23:28, and Sara Hall, Molly Born and Des Linden, the 2010 Chicago runner-up who is building toward a 100-mile debut later this fall, are also in. Emma Grace Hurley makes her marathon debut in the city where, in March, she broke Kastor’s 21-year-old American 8K record at the Shamrock Shuffle.
Men’s and Women’s Elite Fields
The fields below are from the organizers’ July announcement, updated for the withdrawals of Alex Masai, Zach Panning, Jacob Thomson and Felicia Pasadyn and the addition of Abdi.
Men
- Jacob Kiplimo (UGA), 2:00:28
- Amos Kipruto (KEN), 2:01:39
- Milkesa Mengesha (ETH), 2:03:17
- Tadese Takele (ETH), 2:03:23
- Bashir Abdi (BEL), 2:03:36
- Daniel Mateiko (KEN), 2:03:44
- Asrar Hiyrden (ETH), 2:03:59
- Charles Hicks (USA), 2:04:35
- Suguru Osako (JPN), 2:04:55
- Mohamed Reda El Aaraby (MAR), 2:05:18
- Clayton Young (USA), 2:05:41
- Vinny Mauri (USA), 2:05:54
- Yemane Haileselassie (ERI), 2:06:06
- Galen Rupp (USA), 2:06:07
- Akira Akasaki (JPN), 2:06:15
- Boki Diriba (ETH), 2:06:26
- Hendrik Pfeiffer (GER), 2:06:34
- Abbabiya Simbassa (USA), 2:06:53
- Brian Kibor (KEN), debut
- Adriaan Wildschutt (RSA), debut
Women
- Brigid Kosgei (KEN), 2:14:04
- Hawi Feysa (ETH), 2:14:57
- Sutume Kebede (ETH), 2:15:55
- Megertu Alemu (ETH), 2:16:34
- Brillian Kipkoech (KEN), 2:17:05
- Sharon Lokedi (KEN), 2:17:22
- Degitu Azimeraw (ETH), 2:17:58
- Loice Chemnung (KEN), 2:18:24
- Joan Kilimo (KEN), 2:18:40
- Magdalyne Masai (KEN), 2:18:58
- Fantu Worku (ETH), 2:19:08
- Mary Ngugi Cooper (KEN), 2:19:26
- Sara Hall (USA), 2:20:32
- Yuka Akasaki (JPN), 2:21:33
- Susanna Sullivan (USA), 2:21:56
- Des Linden (USA), 2:22:38
- Isobel Batt-Doyle (AUS), 2:22:59
- Natosha Rogers (USA), 2:23:28
- Emma Grace Hurley (USA), debut
- Amy-Eloise Neale (GBR), debut
Getting Into the 2027 Chicago Marathon
The application window for the 2027 Chicago Marathon opens on Oct. 8, three days before this year’s race, and stays open for three weeks. Registration for the Chicago 13.1 and the Shamrock Shuffle, the other two races in the Chicago Distance Series, is already open, and our Chicago race guide collects the rest of our coverage of the race.
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