This race has a 5K, 10K and 5K walk. I love any race that supports something near and dear to my family and this one is to help keep Lincoln Park Zoo FREE to all visitors. I did this race with my husband and son last year. There were some issues with the course structure--the course wasn't closed off to public and you literally had to run around zoo visitors, the paths were not clearly marked and the finish wasn't even in the zoo.
NEW FOR THIS YEAR:
They changed the course! It was completely closed off so you weren't stumbling over non-runners and the finish was right at the Lions exhibit. So cool. They added Lagunitas as a sponsor and Aurelios pizza. The only issue was they only had one station of each and by the time 6,000 people were done running...the line for beer and pizza was about 100 plus people deep.
GOOD THINGS
They seriously have the best race shirt in Chicago. Hands down. Every year it is an awesome tech shirt made by New Balance and it is my favorite shirt to run in. The women's is actually a womens sizing and cut. The staff at the zoo make this event. They are dressed up like animals, they greet everyone and are so nice and thankful for you to be participating. They make up for the horrendous lines for pizza and beer. I am gluten free so I didn't have to wait in either line. lol.
This is a great family event. There are some heavy hitters that compete like the New Balance racing team but there are a lot of families that race too. My son and I do the 5K while my husband does the 10K. They have a staggered start and it works perfect for us. You couldn't ask for better scenery to run through that beautiful zoo early on a Sunday morning while the animals are waking up.
NEGATIVE THINGS
Parking is expensive $20 at the zoo. Street parking is mostly blocked off for the race. Its hard to get to the zoo by public transportation if you live on the north side of the city so we drove. With our zoo membership parking is free though. It just takes 30 minutes to get out of the lot after the race. The other issue this year was there were no mile markers or time clocks for the 10K runners after mile two and then the finish line was around a bend so you had no warning it was coming up for those people that sprint to the finish. (I am just glad to make it there at all so I didn't mind!) They had some bib issues and had to have some of the 5K runners run with the 10K but it seemed to be corrected in the end. They had a virtual swag bag this year which I didn't like. You have to go online to claim coupons and print them out....
I would recommend this race. It gets better every year. They send out a survey each year and I feel like they listen and try to improve the race each time.