Emily Wedge's Staging Area

Running through Chicago is great because there is always something to look at. This race draws quite a crowd of spectators, so there’s always someone cheering throughout the entire course. GPS is a bit touch and go while staring off downtown, so pace was showing all over the place and my watch distance had me completing 2 miles prior to the course marker, so my watch distance was off early on. There were plenty of water and Gatorade stations throughout, along with aid stations and porta John’s. Some areas even had people out with biofreeze bottles and tubs of Vaseline, great touch!! The route design also made it relatively easy for my friend to meet me at a few different points.
Tiny downside: im a back of the pack runner, but still finished before the cut off. In the last few miles, it felt like some of the volunteers were less bothered about handing out fluids at the stations and just trying to clean up. Also the last 300m to the finish line was pretty void of spectators because I believe those were seats people paid for and they had all left at that point. Not sure why you wouldn’t open it up to the public after a certain point.