Cool...thanks for the Hostel recommendation - I'll pass that along.

I've definitely been advising people to consider Priceline about 3-4 weeks before the race. With 40,000 entries and the standard 10-15% that fail to make the starting line, that's 4k to 6k runners canceling reservations (well, figure a thousand or two hotel rooms, anyway).

Figure the bulk of those cancels happen as people are reaching peak training mileage (and either getting injured or just deciding they aren't in good enough form to make the trip)...I would imagine that some of these rates will drop in September, especially at the hotels that are a couple of miles away from Grant Park.