Instead of a finish line, he bursts through miles of red tape. Long before the thousands of marathon runners pound the pavement of Chicago, Carey Pinkowski has been hitting the streets.
And the alleys. And the driveways. And the bridges.
Bridges?
“Chicago has over 200 bridges and the course crosses four of them,” Pinkowski said. “You can imagine if one of the bridges went up during the race.”
That’s a thought the 40-year-old executive director of the Oct. 19 LaSalle Banks Chicago Marathon would rather not entertain. Since 1990 Pinkowski, a Harvey native who grew up in Hammond, and ran track and cross country at Villanova, has been leaping over bureaucratic hurdles that involve nearly every major local government agency in the Chicago area.
“My number one responsibility is communication from all the different entities involved,” Pinkowski said. “There is medical, operations, sponsorship, media, community relations. We go through the Police Department, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Streets and Sanitation, the Fire Department, the State Police, the CTA, the Park District.
“There are 26.2 miles of urban roadway with 14,000 runners traveling it, and we deal with what is affected by it.”
Sounds like nothing but hangups and headaches, but the City That Works actually works when it comes to the marathon, Pinkowski says.
“The cooperation is fantastic. The city really sees the value of special events,” he said.
Jim Sheehan, director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Events, agrees. And he gets a close look at the Chicago Marathon–he’s about to run his 13th.
“I’ve run Boston eight times and several others, and in my opinion, Chicago is head and shoulders above the rest, especially the way it runs through the different neighborhoods, the lake, downtown,” Sheehan said. “Now everyone wants to come to Chicago. It’s unbelievable for a race that was on a respirator not too long ago. They can’t figure out how we do the things we do.”
Pinkowski said that 14,700 runners–about half from out of town–are preregistered for the ’97 race. The total will be close to 15,000, almost twice as large as last year’s field.
Still, it’s not a guaranteed gallop to glory. Pinkowski’s worst nightmare is already in the record books.
“It was in 1993 when we had 8 inches of snow,” he said. “It started on Friday, and I thought it was just one of those freak things, but it didn’t stop and was at its worst late Saturday night. Then the temperature dropped. And this was late October, which is usually Indian summer.
“We have a great picture from a helicopter that showed exactly where the race was being run–because those streets were plowed. And a guy from Brazil (Luis Antonio dos Santos), who had never been north of the equator before, won the race.”
Leon Dorne, associate city traffic engineer for the Department of Transportation, is in charge of the physical aspects of the route. He recalls a large sewer collapsing just three days before a recent marathon.
“Our crews worked around the clock, and the asphalt was still steaming when the runners ran over it,” he said. “We handled it.”
Pinkowski paused to look at his busy staff, which swells from seven year-round to about 300 on race day.
“I would be dreaming to think that there wouldn’t be a gas problem or a sewer problem or an erosion problem or that something won’t happen just before the race,” he said. “But when that last runner crosses the finish line, my first thought is that I can finally get some sleep.”
