On October 12, 2014, Carey Pinkowski will celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of his first Chicago Marathon as Race Director. At Tim Maloney, Bank of America president for Illinois noted, without Carey Pinkowski, the race would have taken a much different course.
The Bank of America Chicago Marathon has part of Carey Pinkowski in it, each and every step of the 26.2 miles.
Carey Pinkowski was a fine runner in both high school and college. In high school, from Gary, Indiana, Carey joined Rudy Chapa and Tim Keogh are three high school runners, from the same school, to break nine minutes for two miles in the same season, and same race. Carey Pinkowski then ran for Villanova and the rest, they say in history.
About 1997, I believe, I was coming back from a late event with Jeremy Solomon, the associate publisher at the Chicago Athlete. We saw this guy on the course, checking out the marathon signage, and we were surprised to see that it was Carey Pinkowski. To this day, Carey still does those types of things, as all great race directors do.
This interview was done on Thursday, October 9, at the morning press conference. Special thanks to Carey, who was funny, and thoughtful, all at the same time.
