Expo, schedule and race morning

Packet pickup

• Thursday, October 8, 2026: 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
• Friday, October 9, 2026: 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
• Saturday, October 10, 2026: 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.

• Pickup is in person only and there is no race-day option and no mailing option for the marathon: if you are not inside Hall B1 before 6:00 p.m. on Saturday, October 10, you do not run. Plan the expo as a fixed appointment, not a maybe.
• Nobody can collect your packet for you. The official rule is that individuals will not be allowed to pick up on behalf of others, so a spouse, teammate or coach arriving with your confirmation is turned away.
• Bring two things or you leave empty-handed: your Packet Pick-up email (the emailed confirmation, on your phone is fine) and a government photo ID. One without the other is not enough.
• Security screening runs at the expo entrance and the event asks attendees not to bring large bags or luggage. If you are flying in and heading straight from the airport, drop the suitcase at your hotel first or you will be arguing at the door.
• Your packet includes the bib, the timing device, the gear check tag and the participant shirt and bag. The gear check tag is inside that packet, so a runner who skips the expo has no way to check a bag on Sunday.
• Saturday is the crush. The expo shares Saturday with the Abbott Chicago 5K morning and with everyone who flew in Friday night. Thursday afternoon or Friday morning is the calm window.
• If you are also running the Abbott Chicago 5K on Saturday morning, your 5K packet is only available Thursday and Friday at the same expo, because the 5K runs at 7:30 a.m. Saturday before the expo opens. The 5K listing gives Thursday as 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., an hour later than the marathon expo's 10 a.m. Thursday open, so do not turn up at 10 a.m. expecting a 5K packet.
• The Abbott Chicago 5K is the only event with a mail-my-packet option: $25, US addresses only, and the deadline was August 6, 2026. That deadline has passed, so 5K packets are expo-only now.
• McCormick Place is roughly 2.5 miles south of the Loop hotels near the start, not walking distance in the way the start line is. Budget real transit time; CTA, Metra, South Shore Line and Divvy all serve it.

August 2026

The published weekend schedule

Race day is Sunday, October 11, 2026, with the start and finish both in Grant Park, so a Loop hotel puts you inside a short walk of both. The number that actually bites is your corral close, not your wave start: Wave 1 corrals shut at 7:20 a.m. but Wave 1 does not run until 7:35, Wave 2 shuts at 7:45 for an 8:00 start, and Wave 3 shuts at 8:10 for an 8:35 start. The organisers ask runners to be in the corral about 20 minutes before it closes, which for a Wave 3 runner means being in place by roughly 7:50 a.m. even though you will not cross the line for another 45 minutes. Everyone must start in their assigned corral. Gear check opens at 5:30 a.m. and closes at 4:00 p.m., and the tag you need for it came in your expo packet. All times are the organiser's published times and are labelled subject to change, so re-check the week of the race.

Getting there

Plan on the car being useless from 1 a.m., not from 6 a.m. The official brochure is explicit that towing of vehicles on closed thoroughfares begins at 1 a.m. on race Sunday and that anything not moved by then is ticketed and towed to the nearest auto pound. Course closures themselves land at 6 a.m., and by then the running course has cut the Loop in half: State Street from Grand to Jackson and Jackson Boulevard from State to LaSalle are both shut at 6 a.m. and do not reopen until 11 a.m. The counterweight is that the city keeps the big arteries open all day, so the practical answer for a Loop hotel is that you can drive in before 6 a.m. and you cannot drive in after it, and after roughly 6:15 a.m. you should be walking regardless. The L, and specifically the Red Line, is the only transport in this city that does not care about any of it.

• Race morning street closures start at 6 a.m. and reopen in a wave. The official 2025 brochure closes the entire course at 6 a.m. on race Sunday and reopens it in sequence behind the last runners: Columbus from the start to Grand and Grand to State at 10:30 a.m., State from Grand to Jackson and Jackson from State to LaSalle at 11 a.m., Wacker from Wells to Adams at 1:45 p.m., Adams from Wacker to Damen at 2 p.m., and Roosevelt from Michigan to Columbus last at 6 p.m. The single most useful line in the whole document is the neighborhood note: all streets in the Loop, defined as the box bounded by Wells, Van Buren, Wabash and Lake, will be open to traffic by 9 a.m. on race day, with public transportation recommended.
• Grant Park itself closes days ahead of race day. This is the part visitors miss. In 2025 Grant Park closures began gradually on Thursday, September 25 and ran through Friday, October 17, and the streets you would actually use were gone well before the weekend: Jackson Drive from Columbus to Lake Shore Drive from 10 a.m. Thursday, Balbo from Michigan to Columbus and Columbus from Ida B. Wells to Roosevelt from 4 a.m. Thursday, Columbus from Monroe to Ida B. Wells and Congress Plaza Drive from 4 a.m. Friday, and Columbus from Randolph to Monroe plus Monroe east of Michigan from 4 a.m. Saturday. If you are arriving Friday or Saturday by car, your hotel entrance may already be behind a barricade.
• Towing begins at 1 a.m. Sunday and is enforced. The brochure states that if you live on a street along the route you must move your vehicle off the course by the Saturday, that towing on closed thoroughfares begins at 1 a.m. on race Sunday, and that vehicles not removed by 1 a.m. will be ticketed and towed to the nearest auto pound. Practical translation for a visitor: do not leave a rental on the street anywhere near the course on Saturday night, put it in a garage.
• Can a car actually reach a Loop hotel at 5:45 to 6:30 a.m. Before 6 a.m., yes, if you approach on the arteries the city keeps open: DuSable Lake Shore Drive stays open northbound and southbound all day, Michigan Avenue stays open in both directions north of 11th Street, and the expressways stay open with the Kennedy exit ramp at Adams Street closed. After 6 a.m. the answer is effectively no for anything on or east of State Street, because the course itself is running through the Loop on State and Jackson. A 5:45 a.m. drop-off on Michigan or Wabash is realistic. A 6:30 a.m. one is a gamble you have no reason to take when the same trip is a fifteen minute walk.
• Parking: the four Millennium Garages are open. The marathon points drivers to the Millennium Garages, four underground facilities: Millennium Lakeside, Millennium Park, Grant Park South and Grant Park North, with discounted advance online rates. The official page states directly that there will be temporary road closures but all four garages will be open on race day. What it does not state is which entrances remain reachable with Columbus Drive closed from Randolph south, so if you are parking there, buy the pass in advance and confirm the entrance the week of the race.
• CTA Red Line: the one that runs all night. The Red Line is a 24 hour route and its published weekend timetable has trains rolling right through the pre-dawn hours, leaving Howard around 4:47, 4:59, 5:11, 5:23, 5:35, 5:47 and 5:58 and then roughly every ten minutes, reaching Roosevelt about forty minutes later. For a 7:20 a.m. corral close this is not close to tight: a 5:35 a.m. train out of Howard puts you at Roosevelt by about 6:14 a.m. Only the Red and Blue lines run overnight, so if you are relying on the Green, Orange, Brown or Pink line you need to check their Sunday first departures.
• Which stations to use. The marathon names Roosevelt on the Red, Green and Orange lines as the finish line station, with the instruction to board at Roosevelt Road and walk east toward Museum Campus and Grant Park. Jackson, where the Red and Blue lines meet, sits on mile 2 and is the natural Loop stop for a start line approach on foot. Washington/Wells covers the Brown, Pink and Orange lines at mile 13.5. Note that Jackson, Adams/Wabash and Van Buren Street all sit inside the box that reopens by 9 a.m.
• Metra, South Shore and the suburban option. The marathon lists Metra with a 7 dollar Day Pass for single day unlimited rides or a 10 dollar Weekend Pass covering both days, plus the South Shore Line from South Bend, Indiana with parking at its stations. Millennium Station and Van Buren Street are the two lakefront downtown terminals and both put you a short walk from the park. The unresolved risk is timing: Metra Sunday service is far thinner than the L and its first inbound trains are much later than the Red Line's, so if you are staying in the suburbs you are trusting a single train to make a 7:20 a.m. corral. Check the actual Sunday timetable before you commit, and if the numbers are close, move downtown for the night instead.
• The timing math for a 7:20 a.m. corral. The 2025 official brochure lists a 7:20 a.m. wheelchair start and a 7:30 a.m. open field start, with lead runners hitting mile 1 at 7:34 a.m. and the finish around 9:34 a.m. Working backwards from a 7:20 a.m. corral close, gear check and security screening mean you want to be entering Grant Park by 6:30 to 6:45 a.m., which is fifteen minutes after the course closes at 6 a.m. From a four to seven minute hotel that means leaving your room around 6:15 a.m. and never touching a vehicle. From anywhere requiring the L, be on a train no later than about 6:15 a.m.

Parking near the course endpoints

These are mapped garages near the course, not a promise of race-day access. Check closures and pre-booking rules with the organizer.

• Millennium Garage3 minute modeled walk to start
• Millennium Lakeside Garage3 minute modeled walk to start
• Grant Park North Garage4 minute modeled walk to start
• 55 East Monroe Self Park5 minute modeled walk to start
• Grant Park South Garage5 minute modeled walk to start
• Adams-Wabash Self Park6 minute modeled walk to start
• Prudential Plaza6 minute modeled walk to start
• Field Harbor7 minute modeled walk to start
• Village Market7 minute modeled walk to start
• Aqua Self Park8 minute modeled walk to start

Published entry tiers

Checked 2026-08-26; fees and tiers can change.