General Info
Price: $44 was the early registration price (2022)
Date I ran it: 10/2/22
Participants: Approximately 1,888 (2022)
Weather: low 60s and overcast (2022)
Overall Opinion:
This was my second time running this race and it was great both times. I’ve run a lot of 5Ks and this one is my favorite. You get to do a run in the city without the headache of going downtown. I parked my car on the street a half mile away. There was barely a line for the porta potties and the course wasn’t crowded at all. It’s a perfect race.
Pros
- Easy street parking for the race and packet pickup.
- One of the best neighborhoods of Chicago.
- A lot of porta potties with very short lines.
- A reasonable price for a Chicago race.
- The course wasn’t crowded at all, I did almost no zig zagging. It’s also flat and usually has good running weather. It’s definitely an opportunity to PR (and I did break my old PR by over a minute).
- There is some crowd support. A lot of 5Ks have hardly any spectators but there was a decent turn out for this one.
- The included jacket is nice.
- The start of the 606 is right by the finish line, so it works out perfectly if you want to continue running after the race. If you haven’t been, the 606 is a nice 2.7 mile elevated running trail.
Cons
- There was only one water stop. Not a huge deal because it’s a short race, but two water stops would have been nice.
- They only had water on the course. There is no Gatorade, unless I just didn’t see it.
- There was no medal. I don’t care about this because I’ve never been a medal person. I know a lot of people like them for pictures though.
