Chicago marathon course map and elevation profile · October 10, 2027
Chicago Marathon Course
Bank of America Chicago Marathon, Chicago. 112 ft of climbing over 26.2 miles: flat. The line on the ground, the elevation mile by mile, the climbs worth planning for, and what a goal time runs on this course.
- Distance
- 26.2 mi
- Climb
- 112 ft
- Descent
- 104 ft
- High point
- 627 ft
- Verdict
- flat
Your goal on this course
Your goal on this course.
Enter the time you'd run on a flat course. Out comes what the same effort runs here, with a split for every mile that has its climb and descent already paid for.
The twelve-week course
Tier I for a first marathon, Tier II for a big PB, Tier III for a BQ or faster. One video a week, with fueling, pacing, workouts, recovery and race planning in the week you need them.
Tier I
$24714 videos · 12 weeks
Your first marathon, or your first time on a real plan. Week 1 is three days of running. By the end you’ll run 16 miles (25.5km) and finish at marathon pace. We cover easy running, cross-training, fueling, recovery, your first threshold workouts, and how to run each half of the race.
Start Tier I
Tier II
$24714 videos · 12 weeks
You’ve done one or a few, but now we get faster. You should be holding 20–30 miles (32–48km) a week before Week 1. You’ll peak around 54–60 miles (87–97km), with marathon pace in your long runs, a 20-miler (32km), and a 10K time trial that sets your race pace.
Start Tier II
How the numbers are worked out
Where the line comes from
A GPS trace of a recent edition, with elevation, from an open collection of course files, scaled to the certified 42.195 km so the mile markers land where the race's do. The elevation is smoothed over 100 m before anything is counted, so GPS noise doesn't read as a hill. Courses change a little year to year, and the race's own map is the last word on turns and aid stations.
What a hill costs
The usual rule of thumb at marathon effort: about 12–15 seconds lost per 100 ft of climb and about 8 seconds gained per 100 ft of descent. The middle of that range is applied mile by mile, so the splits show an even effort rather than an even pace, which is how the course teaches the race to be run.
