The Definitive Chicago Marathon Checklist (and Any Major)

Why a checklist and not a "feeling"

Every September I get the same question from athletes heading into their first Major: "Henri, am I missing something?" Almost always the answer is yes, and almost never is it something related to training. It's the passport left in the other suitcase, the gel flavor they never tried, the anti-chafing balm sitting in the bathroom at home.

The Majors — Chicago, Boston, New York, Berlin, London, Tokyo — share something beyond prestige: they're logistically demanding races, with tens of thousands of runners, corrals timed to the minute, and enormous cities you have to learn to navigate in 48 hours. Training gets you to the start line in shape. This checklist gets you to the start line without unnecessary friction, physical or mental.

This isn't a list to memorize the night before. It's a list to work through during race week, in blocks, so that on Sunday the only thing left to do is run.

Block 1: Documentation and logistics — what you don't improvise

Items 1 through 5 have something in common: if they fail, no amount of training fixes them. A forgotten passport or an expired visa pulls you out of the race before the gun even goes off, no matter how many miles you've banked in your legs.

What I see most often with international athletes is underestimating travel time. Chicago moves more than 50,000 runners toward Grant Park the same morning. The recommendation to arrive 90 to 120 minutes before your start time (item 4) isn't exaggerated — it's the margin that absorbs packed trains, security checkpoints, and the final walk to your corral. Practice that route in the days before, at the same time, using the same transportation you'll use on Sunday. There's no mental shortcut that replaces having actually walked it once.

On pre-race dinners (item 5): booking ahead isn't a luxury, it's part of your nutrition strategy. Standing for 40 minutes waiting for a table the night before a marathon burns glycogen and sleep you won't get back.

Block 2: Gear — the "nothing new" rule

Items 6 through 11 revolve around a principle I repeat until it's tiresome: race day is not the day to try anything new. Shoes with 90–150 miles on them, socks already broken in, an outfit that's been washed and worn on a long run. Skin, tendons, and clothing seams behave differently in the first hour than at mile twenty, and you only discover that if you've already lived through it in training.

Disposable clothing for the corral wait (item 9) deserves its own mention: a body at rest, exposed to wind off Lake Michigan for one to two hours before the gun, loses core heat that's expensive to recover in the opening miles. That old sweatshirt you're about to donate isn't a whim — it's part of your pre-race thermal regulation.

Block 3: Nutrition and hydration — the loading that's planned, not improvised

Items 12 through 17 are territory where the science has a lot to say. Carbohydrate loading (item 16) at 7–10 g/kg/day over the three days prior is well established in exercise physiology literature as a strategy to maximize muscle and liver glycogen stores ahead of a sustained effort lasting more than 90 minutes.

Equally important is what you restrict (item 17). Raw fiber, excess dairy, and fried foods aren't "bad" in general, but 48 hours before a 26.2-mile effort they're a gastrointestinal risk variable not worth taking on. I've seen marathons ruined not by a lack of fitness, but by a poorly calculated salad on Friday.

Electrolytes (item 13) and precise gel counts (item 12) address the same issue: neuromuscular fatigue and cramping have a sodium and potassium depletion component that's prevented with known doses, not improvised at mile 19. The biomarker that best reflects the cumulative metabolic stress of an effort at this scale is an active area of research; work by Siebers and Bizjak on exercise biomarkers [PMID:41922043] reviews exactly how physiological markers — from electrolytes to muscle damage indicators — shift with prolonged effort, and why prevention (planned hydration and electrolytes) matters more than correcting on the fly.

Block 4: Body care — the small stuff that ruins the big picture

Items 18 through 21 take the least time and get skipped by the most runners. Vaseline or BodyGlide on friction zones, nipple protection, toenails trimmed straight across days ahead of time (never the night before), and something that surprises many people — avoiding aggressive stretching or massage in the 48 hours prior.

That last one has physiological logic behind it: reactive muscle tone — that controlled stiffness that allows for an efficient contact-and-push-off cycle — is compromised if you aggressively manipulate tissue right before a strength-endurance effort like a marathon. This isn't the moment to "loosen up" the muscle; it's the moment to leave it ready to work.

Block 5: Race strategy — where everything training can't decide gets decided

This is where my work as a coach concentrates during race week. Items 22 through 26 aren't objects you pack — they're decisions you make ahead of time so you don't have to make them with a fatigued brain at mile 20.

The stoplight system (EAS) for adjusting pace based on weather — green, yellow, red — is a tool I use with every athlete before a fall Major. Chicago can hit 46°F or 75°F depending on the year, and your pacing plan needs real adjustment margin, not just a mental one.

The "skyscraper effect" through The Loop (item 24) is specific to Chicago, but the same principle applies to any city with tall buildings: between miles 12 and 14, GPS accuracy drops as the signal bounces between skyscrapers. Blindly trusting your watch there is a common mistake. That's why a printed pacing band (item 22) isn't a retro accessory — it's a backup for when technology fails.

The mental reserve for Roosevelt Hill (item 25) — the course's only notable ramp, right before the final turn onto Columbus Drive — is a detail that separates someone who negotiates the final mile well from someone who falls apart yards from the finish.

On mantras (item 26): the evidence around the effect of prolonged exercise on cognitive function and mood has solid neurobiological grounding. The meta-analysis by Szuhany and colleagues on brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) [PMID:25455510] shows that endurance exercise increases this factor, which is associated with neuroplasticity and mood regulation. That helps explain why runners describe a particular "clarity" or mental resilience in the second half of a well-paced marathon, and why having mental anchors prepared in advance — not improvised — works better than waiting for motivation to show up on its own at the mile 20 wall.

Block 6: Race day and recovery — the work doesn't end at the finish line

The last four items (27–30) tend to get less attention than they deserve. The clear gear-check bag, a GPS watch charged and set to race mode, and an agreed meeting point by letter are pure logistics — but logistics that prevent unnecessary stress on a day that already asks enough of your nervous system.

Item 30 — the immediate recovery window — is where cardiovascular physiology comes directly into play. The prolonged effort of a marathon produces measurable transient cardiac stress, and recent research by Frandsen and Aaroe on the cardiac effects of prolonged endurance exercise in younger and older athletes [PMID:40667749] documents post-effort functional cardiac changes that, while they typically resolve within hours or days, reinforce why the heat blanket, the continuous 15-minute walk, and avoiding sitting down abruptly aren't just protocol gestures — they're part of a real physiological transition back to homeostasis. This point becomes more relevant for masters runners — I compete in the 3000m myself, in the 45–49 age group — where the cardiovascular system needs a more gradual recovery after maximal, prolonged efforts.

Carbohydrate and protein intake within the first 45 minutes post-finish also has clear physiological backing: it's the window where glycogen resynthesis is most efficient and where repair of muscle tissue damaged by 26.2 miles of repeated impact begins.

Coach's perspective: the checklist is mental training, not paperwork

What I like most about working through this list with my athletes isn't the list itself — it's what it produces: a sense of control. A Major marathon has too many variables outside your control — the weather, the crowds, GPS signal bouncing between skyscrapers. The more you control what's controllable (documents, tested gear, calculated nutrition, a pacing plan with real margins), the more mental bandwidth you have left for what actually matters on race day: running by feel when technology or plan A fails.

Don't let this checklist become a source of anxiety the night before. Work through it in blocks during the week, cross off what's already handled, and arrive Sunday with exactly one task left: run.

PDFPMPRunning Chicago Checklist 30 ItemsDownload PDF · 50 KB↓

References

• Frandsen J, Aaroe M. Cardiac Effects of Prolonged Endurance Exercise in Young and Older Athletes. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2025. [PMID:40667749]
• Siebers M, Bizjak DA. Exercise biomarkers. Adv Clin Chem. 2026. [PMID:41922043]
• Szuhany KL, Bugatti M, et al. A meta-analytic review of the effects of exercise on brain-derived neurotrophic factor. J Psychiatr Res. 2015. [PMID:25455510]
• Couvert A, Goumy L, et al. Effects of a Cycling versus Running HIIT Program on Fat Mass Loss and Gut Microbiota Composition in Men with Overweight/Obesity. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2024. [PMID:38233990]
• Traish AM, Zitzmann M. The complex and multifactorial relationship between testosterone deficiency (TD), obesity and vascular disease. Rev Endocr Metab Disord. 2015. [PMID:26590935]