I have a room downtown at the Residence Inn on Chicago Marathon weekend (at a slightly above normal, but reasonable, weekend rate - $144/nt. for a 1-bdrm suite). I was lucky to get it about two months ago; currently the rate is gone and the entire downtown area is either sold out or asking astronomical rates for rooms.

Now, I'm getting a few panicked questions from friends who have registered for the race but can't find rooms, except near ORD or MDW. My friends think I have some sort of magical "in" with Marriott because I travel a lot, but I really don't - I just happened to book early.

So my question is: what's your advice on the next-best-thing to a downtown Chicago room? My first reaction to friends so far is "Just book a cheap Rosemont hotel and ride the train to the start line." But I know if it were me I'd do a bit more digging: aside from running a fast race, I'd want to actually enjoy the weekend in an interesting Chicago neighborhood.

Is there an in-between? Good hotels in Lincoln Park or one of the other urban neighborhoods to the north of the Mag Mile area? Doesn't have to be MR/HH/SPG. B&B's okay. If they can ride the train or take a cab to within a mile or so of Grant Park, that's good enough...

My wife is making this trip with me, so we aren't offering to do the dozen-stinky-runners-in-1-hotel-room thing. "Let your buddies crash on the floor" is not an option this time!

Thoughts? This is somewhat odd for me: I lived in Chicago for 2 years and have spent dozens of weekends since then in various downtown Marriotts and Hiltons. I've never encountered a situation where getting a cheap room was any problem whatsoever.