Early Sunday morning, Mirayda Rivera began stretching as she mentally prepared to enter Grant Park for the start of the Chicago Marathon. Wearing a hat and earrings adorned with the flag of Puerto Rico to remind her of home, the 52-year-old battled last-minute nerves about not being able to finish.
Not only did Rivera travel thousands of miles to compete in her first marathon, she also fought through hip and knee injuries while training.
“My goal is to get to the finish line. I’m going to dedicate every mile to the health of everybody, especially my friends,” Rivera said in Spanish.
Rivera joined about 47,000 participants to navigate 26.2 miles in one of the world’s six major marathons. The course attracts both beginners and elite athletes with its “fast and flat” course, which goes through 29 neighborhoods, organizers said. Participants start and finish in Grant Park, but go as far north as Sheridan Road and as far south as 35th Street.
The Chicago Marathon has been the site of five marathon world records and may have added another to its books Sunday when runner Kelvin Kiptum won the 2023 Chicago Marathon with an unofficial world record race time of 2:00:35. Last year’s winner Benson Kipruto came in second with a time of 2:04:02.
At a post-race news conference, Kiptum said that his main goal was to break the course record but that he “was in good shape to run the fast race.” He ultimately broke the world record formerly held by Eliud Kipchoge by 34 seconds.
“The whole time, I felt in control,” Kiptum said.
Kiptum, a 23-year-old from Kenya, said he plans to go home and rest before identifying his next steps. Making it to the 2024 Olympics in Paris is on his mind, he said.
There have now been six world records set in Chicago, said executive race director Carey Pinkowski. Sunday was the marathon’s 45th anniversary and Pinkowski said he was pleased to have the men’s world record back in the city.
“This is such a great sports city,” Pinkowski said. “This is such a great community.”
The Chicago marathon has been canceled only twice: because of the lack of a sponsor in 1987 and the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
“There’s so much energy here and we’re used to coming back from a setback,” Pinkowski said.
In the women’s race, Sifan Hassan ran the second-fastest marathon in women’s history, coming in with an unofficial time of 2:13:44. The 30-year-old from the Netherlands also broke the Chicago course record.
Hassan said the last five kilometers of the race were challenging, especially because her hip was in pain. Ruth Chepngetich claimed second place with a time of 2:15:37.
“It was amazing,” Hassan said. “I’m grateful that I (won).”
Meanwhile, Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair race, finishing in 1:22:37. Hug surpassed his first-place finish from last year by more than two minutes, setting an unofficial course record. In the women’s wheelchair race, Catherine Debrunner also set an unofficial course record with a time of 1:38:44.
The men’s wheelchair racers started out the competition, lining up at the start line at the intersection of Columbus Drive and Monroe Street at 7:20 a.m. The first wave of runners began at 7:30 a.m. with the final group heading out at 8:35 a.m.
More than 1.5 million spectators were expected to line city streets, cheering on runners with loud clapping and colorful signs.
One of the spectators was José Robles, 55, who met Rivera on the plane ride from his home in Orlando. Robles, who is also from Puerto Rico, was happy to root for Rivera during the marathon while he cheered on his wife. He planned to head to mile 13 with Gatorade and other supplies.
It was cloudy and chilly as the race began, with temperatures hovering near 50 degrees by midmorning. For high school friends, Katie Malizzio and Meredith Keller, it was the perfect weather. Keller has run 13 marathons, including 10 Chicago Marathons, and said training this year has been brutal with the scorching summer temperatures.
The duo from the suburbs run and train together. Malizzio has run four marathons and hopes to achieve her goal of finishing another one now that she’s 50.
Keller, 49, is also running with a milestone birthday on the horizon.
“I turn 50 next year and she made me do it again, and my first one was when I was 39 turning 40,” Keller joked.
The friends said one of the best parts of running marathons — besides keeping them motivated and in shape — is that they’re able to eat more. After today’s race, they plan to snack on Lou Malnati’s pizza and beer.
“We do it every year, we just love it,” Malizzio said.
Roads on the course closed at 7 a.m. and began reopening at 9:30 a.m. after the final runners passed through. Other streets throughout the city open later in the afternoon.
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Molly Ferazani and Corinne O’Toole, seniors at the University of Notre Dame, were running the marathon to support Recovery on Water, a rowing team for breast cancer patients and survivors. Ferazani, 20, said her grandmother is a breast cancer survivor, helping inspire the duo’s first marathon. There are 190 official charity teams at the marathon, with last year’s charity runners raising $27.6 million.
“There’s a lot of people in our lives that are either suffering with cancer or had breast cancer in the past and so we thought it would be a great thing to do,” O’Toole, 22, said.
In addition to relying on their extensive training regimen, the friends also planned to listen to a playlist with country and electronic dance music remixes. They said they hadn’t talked to each other in three days, so conversation will flow during the run. They’re most nervous about finishing the stretch between miles 18 and 20.
“I’m excited, I feel like the adrenaline is going to take us a good amount of the way,” O’Toole said.
