Chicago
Marathon

From the Mayor Daley Marathon to a Major

Chicago had a marathon long before it had this one: the Illinois Athletic Club ran a race from Evanston to Washington Park in 1905 and kept it going into the early 1920s. The modern race is younger. A group of local runners began planning it in late 1976 with the backing of Mayor Richard J. Daley, who died that December; his successor, Michael Bilandic, was a runner himself and saw it through. On 25 September 1977 several thousand people lined up for the first Mayor Daley Marathon. Dan Cloeter won in 2:17:52 and Dorothy Doolittle in 2:50:47.

Nearly half a century on, it is one of the founding races of the Abbott World Marathon Majors, held on a Sunday in October, and the one with the plainest selling point in the sport. Boston has the history, New York the bridges, London the crowds. Chicago has a flat road and cool autumn air, and it has spent four decades turning those two things into world records.

One Loop, No Hills Worth the Name

The course is a single loop. It starts and finishes in Grant Park, on the lakefront, and in between it runs 26.2 miles through 29 of the city's neighbourhoods — north through Lincoln Park, west, then south, and back downtown. The guides argue about the exact elevation numbers; nobody argues about the result, which is a course with almost no net change at all. Its one real climb is a joke the runners tell on themselves: the short ramp over Roosevelt Road near mile 26, known locally as Mount Roosevelt.

The loop matters for more than comfort. Because the start and the finish sit in the same park, Chicago carries neither of the two flaws that keep Boston out of the record books — too much drop from start to finish, and too much distance between them. A world record run here counts, which is the whole reason the fastest people in the sport keep coming in October.

Seven World Records, None of Them Kept

Steve Jones started it. On 21 October 1984, running his first completed marathon, the Welsh runner won Chicago in 2:08:05, a world record. It lasted 181 days, until Carlos Lopes ran 2:07:12 in Rotterdam. Fifteen years later Khalid Khannouchi took the record back to Chicago with 2:05:42, and then broke it himself in London in 2002.

The women's side has been even busier. Catherine Ndereba ran 2:18:47 here in October 2001, 59 seconds inside the mark Naoko Takahashi had set in Berlin a week earlier. Paula Radcliffe beat it on the same course twelve months later, 2:17:18 on 13 October 2002, her first world record. Then the date came around again: on 13 October 2019 Brigid Kosgei ran 2:14:04, 81 seconds faster than Radcliffe's London mark that had stood since 2003, and on 13 October 2024 Ruth Chepngetich ran 2:09:56 — the first woman under two hours ten.

Read the bars together and the pattern is clear. Chicago sets records; it rarely keeps them. Five of the six that have gone were taken by another course — Rotterdam once, Berlin once, London three times — and the sixth by Chicago itself, when Radcliffe beat Ndereba. The last of the men's marks to leave went to London in April 2026, where the two-hour wall finally fell.

Kelvin Kiptum and the Record That Stands

On 8 October 2023 Kelvin Kiptum of Kenya ran 2:00:35 in Chicago — the first man under 2:01 in a record-eligible race, 34 seconds inside Eliud Kipchoge's mark from Berlin. World Athletics ratified it on 6 February 2024. Five days later, on 11 February, Kiptum died in a road accident in Kenya, together with his coach, Gervais Hakizimana. He was 24.

His world record lasted 931 days, until Sabastian Sawe ran 1:59:30 in London on 26 April 2026. In Chicago it is still the number every men's field runs towards: the 2:00:35 remains the course record, and the closest anyone has come since is the 2:01:09 of October 2026.

The Last Two Octobers

The 2025 race was the Jacob Kiplimo show for most of its distance. The Ugandan, holder of the half marathon world record and running only his second marathon, went through halfway on world record pace, faded over the last 10 kilometres and still won in 2:02:23 — his first Major. Hawi Feysa of Ethiopia won the women's race in 2:14:56, at the front of a field in which five women broke 2:20 for the first time in Chicago, and Conner Mantz ran 2:04:43 for fourth, an American record.

Twelve months later, on 11 October 2026, the men's race went to the man who had been waiting for it. Amos Kipruto of Kenya, third in 2024 and second in 2025, broke clear of Kiplimo after 30 kilometres and won in 2:01:09, a personal best by 30 seconds and the second-fastest time ever run in Chicago; the defending champion finished fourth in 2:04:18. Feysa defended her title in 2:13:33, a personal best, ahead of Sharon Lokedi, with Brigid Kosgei third in 2:14:55 — seven years after her own world record on these streets.

Sponsor Kit on the Lakefront

The house rule for reading any race: championships mean federation kit, and the Majors mean sponsor kit. Nobody runs the Chicago loop in national colours. The leaders wear the uniforms of their shoe contracts and management groups — and two of the names in this story, Kiplimo and Kosgei, belong to the same one: the Rosa & Co. group, the Italian-run stable whose athlete-issued Nike kit is one of the rarest lines in the archive.

Sponsor kit · in the archiveNike Rosa & Co. Pro Elite Team 2020/2021 Women Running ShortsAthlete-issued team kit from the Rosa & Co. line — the group behind Jacob Kiplimo, Chicago champion in 2025, and Brigid Kosgei, who set the world record here in 2019.140,00 €View piece →

The other lines behind the Majors each have their own page here — Nike Pro Elite, adidas Pro Elite and NN Running — and the rail below holds one athlete-issued piece from each of the four. For the course that does the opposite of Chicago, see New York, where nobody chases the clock at all.