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.

Don't know what to tell you about downtown Chicago rooms these days; even on average weekends the prices seem high to me. My family is paying $200 on an undistinguished summer weekend night this year.

Surely on marathon weekend everything in a nice hotel within 3 miles of the starting line has been or will be booked at a hefty rate.

Unglamorous surroundings in the MDW area, but close to an Orange Line station and maybe 20 minutes from downtown:

http://www.midwayhotelcenter.com/

I found availability 10/7-10/10, for example, at the Sleep Inn for $143.+ tax.

The Chicago Youth Hostel [(www.chicagohostel.com) better than you might think] has bunk accommodations for $30 a person, segregated by gender. Call them to check on private rooms at about $100 rack rate.

I guess you could reserve somewhere with cancellation privileges and keep checking Hotwire/Priceline.

I fear the days of the $89 Palmer House room are gone for good. Bummer, my parents loved that.

I just checked Country Inn and Suites in Matteson, IL, about 30 minutes by car from downtown or 40 minutes by train a few miles away by cab and found a rate of $82 for those days. Not gorgeous, but something...

Maybe I should open a B&B.

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.

There are some ok hotels in the Lincoln Park/Wrigleyville area as well as in the U of I area. Not sre what their availability is. Club Quarters has a $209 rate for that weekend and by Chicago standards for that weekend, it's a steal!

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.

There are only a few B&Bs in the Gold Coast/Mag Mile area, but they are pretty nice and darn convenient.

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.

Your location is great. I was referring to your recommendation to friends when I mentioned being close to the L.

Chicago is a zoo on marathon weekend, but in a good way. It was the first marathon I did and I'm glad. The support along the route is incredible! If the weather is good, there will be people out the whole way, and you get a good flavor of the city.

My husband and I are planning to run it this time too - his first Chicago marathon. Just being in a crowd of 40K is awesome! It really gets you pumped up.

Enjoy the run and the city!