Check Out This Map Of The Chicago Marathon Course From The Runner's Point Of View

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 24, 2013 6:30PM

Artist and graphic designer Phil Thompson of Cape Horn Illustration is no stranger to these pages. Thompson and wife Katie Lauffenburger are responsible for the Chicago beer bars map and the amazing Chicago Currents map featuring a sea monster slithering up to a ship on Lake Michigan.

Thompson is running in his first Chicago Marathon next month and, to commemorate the occasion, created a map of the marathon's route superimposed on drawings of the neighborhoods it intersects, to give the viewer the impression of the race from the runner's point of view.

"We wanted the marathon course outline to take on a character of its own, kind of like abstract art," Thompson told Chicagoist via email. "But we didn't want to neglect one of great elements of running through an entire city, namely the signature sites and colors that you get from being in the middle of the road."

Thompson started by playing around with different orientations of the course route and found the slanted view in the poster worked best. "Then I ran, drove, and Google Street Viewed the course to get the views that I thought captured a particular key stretch," Thompson said. "The rest was illustrating what I saw and taking artistic liberties with the runners and scenes."

The poster is available at Cape Horn Illustration's website for $24. You can soon buy it at Flax Art & Frame (32 E. Adams). You can also click on the image to open it in a new frame and enlarge.