Chicago Marathon Lottery Opens Today

By Chuck Sudo in News on Mar 10, 2015 2:30PM

Photo by Benjy Lipsman

Attention runners: your first race of the year begins at noon. That's when lottery registration for the 2015 Bank of America Chicago Marathon opens.

Registering for the lottery is free and will remain open until April 21 at noon. After the registration period closes, names will be chosen at random for the chance to formally register for the Oct. 11 race. Don't try to do the "early and often" registration route; duplicate entries will be removed.

Runners with guaranteed entry may also register for the race today. Here are the options for guaranteed entry:

- Runners participating with a charity
- Legacy runners (those who have finished five Chicago marathons in the last 10 years)
- Time qualifiers with a race time of less than 3 hours, 15 minutes for men and less than 3 hours, 45 minutes for women
- Runners participating with an international tour partner
- runners who successfully deferred their 2014 registration

And be patient. Registration for the Chicago Marathon has been hampered the past two years by technical issues.