TheMarathon Clinic
Course pacing

How to pace the Chicago Marathon

The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is a flat and fast marathon, with about 74 m of climbing and 74 m of descent (a near-level net change). Pace it by even effort; on a course this flat, all but even splits will follow.

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Abbott World Marathon MajorCommunity route dataGuide reviewed July 2026
Next Chicago Marathon

Sunday 11 October 2026

About 7 weeks away · 52 days · projected from the usual race weekend

Plan your race with Jason

Elevation gain

74m

Elevation loss

74m

Net change

0m

Terrain

Flat

Typical race-day conditions

October

At the gun

11°C

~7:30am start

By the finish

14°C

warms through the morning

Humidity

71%

morning average

Conditions

Good

close to ideal, a small cost at most

A thirty-year average for October, not a prediction. The real forecast appears here inside the last nine days.

Goal finish timeYour time on a cool day, with no heat allowance in it. Say whether it is a target for this course or what you are good for on flat ground, and the plan below shows what the terrain and the weather each do to it.
::
Your goal time isTwo ways to say what your number means. A TARGET FOR THIS RACE is what most runners have: the plan finishes on your time, and the hills decide how you spend it rather than how much there is. WHAT YOU RUN ON FLAT is the other way round: tell us your flat-course ability and we add what this course costs, which is how you find out what the hills are worth to you.
StrategyEven effort keeps your effort steady and lets pace drift with the terrain, slower up the climbs and faster down. Even pace holds one pace the whole way and ignores the hills. Either way the total stays the goal time you entered, so this changes where your time goes rather than how much of it there is.
Race conditionsPace for an ideal cool day, a typical race-day, or a warm-outlier year. Once race week arrives and you have a forecast, choose Set °C and enter the actual start-time temperature. Warmer conditions slow your realistic finish, and the splits below adjust to match. These figures assume shade, so a clear morning on an exposed course runs a degree or two hotter than the reading here.
AcclimatisedAcclimatised: you already train and race in conditions like these, so your body has adapted. You sweat sooner and more, hold a lower heart rate and core temperature, and barely lose time to the heat.Not yet: you mostly train in cooler weather, so a warm race hits harder, a higher heart rate, an earlier fade, and roughly twice the slowdown an adapted runner sees. It comes good after about two weeks of training in the heat.
Your race plan

3:32:00

Target pace

5:01/km

3:30:00 Chicago +2:00 typical October = 3:32:00

▸Where that comes from
Your goal for Chicago
3:30:00
Chicago’s terrainshapes the splits, not the total
—
↑ climbs +0:46 (74 m)↓ descents -0:36 (74 m)

The climbs and descents very nearly cancel out.

Typical October
+2:00

11°C at the gun, 14°C by the finish. +1.0% adapted.

On the day
3:32:00
Bank of America Chicago Marathon

Chicago, Illinois

Hover the map or the profile, the other follows.

180 m182 m184 m186 m188 mhalf 1:45:580 km510152025303540
plan slows (give time) plan runs (take it back)each block ≈ 500 m of the course
Your race-day splits
Every
Units
MarkerTarget paceClock
1 km4:56/km4:56
2 km5:07/km10:03
3 km5:02/km15:05
4 km5:02/km20:07
5 km5:01/km25:08
6 km5:01/km30:09
7 km5:02/km35:11
8 km5:01/km40:12
9 km4:57/km45:09
10 km5:02/km50:11
11 km5:01/km55:12
12 km5:01/km1:00:13
13 km5:01/km1:05:14
14 km5:01/km1:10:15
15 km5:03/km1:15:18
16 km5:05/km1:20:23
17 km4:59/km1:25:22
18 km5:00/km1:30:22
19 km5:01/km1:35:22
20 km5:02/km1:40:24
21 km5:04/km1:45:28
22 km5:03/km1:50:32
23 km4:59/km1:55:30
24 km5:00/km2:00:31
25 km5:00/km2:05:31
26 km5:01/km2:10:31
27 km5:01/km2:15:33
28 km5:02/km2:20:35
29 km5:02/km2:25:36
30 km5:01/km2:30:37
31 km5:01/km2:35:38
32 km5:01/km2:40:39
33 km5:00/km2:45:39
34 km5:02/km2:50:40
35 km5:02/km2:55:42
36 km5:02/km3:00:45
37 km5:02/km3:05:47
38 km5:02/km3:10:49
39 km5:01/km3:15:50
40 km5:01/km3:20:52
41 km5:03/km3:25:55
42 km5:05/km3:31:00
Finish5:06/km3:32:00

Even-effort splits distribute your goal time by the energy cost of each gradient (the Minetti grade-cost model), not an even pace. Wind, heat, turns, and your own downhill tolerance still apply, so run the climbs by feel and stay relaxed on the descents. Heat builds as you go, so treat the closing 10 km as a feel check rather than a pace target.

Take it to your watch

These exact splits as a structured workout: one step per kilometre, each with its target pace band (±10 s/km). Your watch prompts every step, so on race day you run the terrain, not the arithmetic.

Garmin needs a cable and a computer. In this file: 43 steps · every km · 3:30:00 goal · even effort · typical October conditions · per-km paces. Change anything above and download again.

Getting it onto your watch

You will need a USB cable and a computer. There is no way around that: Garmin has never built a way to send a workout to a watch from a phone, from Garmin Connect, or from any file you can email yourself. Everyone who makes these files, us included, has the same constraint.

  1. Download the file above on a computer.
  2. Plug the watch in by USB and wait for it to appear.
  3. Copy the file into GARMIN/NewFiles. If your watch has no NewFiles folder, use GARMIN/Workouts instead.
  4. Eject the watch and unplug it.
  5. On the watch, go to Training, then Workouts. It will be there under the name of this race.

On a Mac the watch mounts as a media device rather than a drive, so you will need a transfer app such as Android File Transfer to see those folders. Windows shows them in Explorer.

Dragging it into Garmin Connect or TrainingPeaks will not work, and it is worth knowing why. .fit is a container that holds several different kinds of file. A recorded run uploads to both of them happily, which is what those drop zones are built for. A workout is a different file type inside the same extension, and neither platform will import one.

You have the splits. The question is whether they are the right ones for you.

In a Race Strategy Session, Jason reads your last twelve weeks and spends 60 minutes going through the Chicago Marathon with you: what you are fit for, how to pace it, fuelling and the conditions. A$180.

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The coach's read

Flat and fast, with only the small Roosevelt Road rise in the last 600 m to interrupt it. Pace it even, respect the early miles among the skyscrapers where GPS drifts, and keep something for that final kick to the line.

WHY  Allowing for a typical October day, that's about 5:01/km of effort the whole way, the splits below shift with the gradient, not your pace.

Ease the climbs, let the descents run, and stay relaxed through the second half.
JHJason HuntFounder & Head Coach
Take it furtherAdjust for the heatPlan your splits
·Race-day guide

Pacing the Chicago Marathon

A coach's read on how the Bank of America Chicago Marathon runs, and how to spend your effort across it.

01The course

Kilometre by kilometre

  • There are no climbs to plan around: the profile stays within a narrow band the whole way, so the course runs as a flat, even-effort race.
02The plan

How to pace the Chicago Marathon

  1. Read the course before race day. Flat and fast. Flat and fast, with only the small Roosevelt Road rise in the last 600 m to interrupt it.
  2. Pace by effort, not just the watch. Set the effort you can hold for the whole marathon, then let the pace flex with the ground: a little slower up, a little faster down, the same effort throughout.
  3. Hold it steady and even. With no real hills to plan around, the win is discipline: settle on your goal pace early, hold it through the middle, and avoid the temptation to surge.
  4. Plan your finish. Pace it even, respect the early miles among the skyscrapers where GPS drifts, and keep something for that final kick to the line.
03Questions

Chicago Marathon, answered

Is the Chicago Marathon hilly?
No, it's a flat course, with only about 74 m of total climbing over the 42.2 km. There's nothing in the terrain you need to pace around.
How should I pace the Chicago Marathon?
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon is a flat and fast marathon, with about 74 m of climbing and 74 m of descent (a near-level net change). Pace it by even effort; on a course this flat, all but even splits will follow.
Is the Chicago Marathon a good course for a PB?
Yes. It's flat and fast, so on a calm day it's one of the better courses for a personal best. The limiter is your fitness and pacing discipline, not the terrain.
How much elevation gain does the Chicago Marathon have?
About 74 m of total gain and 74 m of loss over the 42.2 km, in line with the organiser's published figures.
Race Strategy Session

The pacing above is free. The judgement is the part worth paying for.

This page knows the Bank of America Chicago Marathon. It does not know you. Two or three weeks out, Jason reads your last twelve weeks and spends 60 minutes going through the day with you, then writes it down so you are not running on memory.

  • An honest read on what your training says you can hold
  • How to spend your effort across this course, and where it is won
  • Fuelling and conditions, decided before you are standing on the line

A$180

One session, one race. Video call, or in person in Sydney.

Plan your race

From the journal

2026-07-13 · 8 min

Pace the TCS Sydney Marathon: Don't Trust the Downhill Start

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Train for Chicago. Not just the distance.

A coach builds this course's climbs, descents and race-day pacing into a plan made for you.

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