Originally Posted by taxgeek
Don't know if you've been to Chicago for the marathon before, but the last thing you want to be doing that morning is fighting th traffic to get into the city. With the number of streets closed and Chicago traffic in general, it's a mess. So, if you can find something close to an L station, preferably the Brown or Red lines you'd be best off. Those lines are also the best for enjoying the city either before or after.
This will be my first "megathon". I can imagine that it'll be a complete zoo. My Res Inn is (allegedly) 1.4 miles to the Start area. If I were 3 miles away, I'd probably be looking for the L. For 1.4, I'll probably just use it to warm up a bit...
Biggest race I've ever done to date is Twin Cities. That's a very well organized medium-sized (9,000 or so) race. The downtown Minneapolis area has plenty of hotel rooms to support that size. Based on how fast the race fills up every year, I imagine they could sell 20,000 or more entries if they wanted to. I'm glad they don't.
But I figure I gotta experience one of these massive marathons at least once, so I'm looking forward to Chicago.