Smaller crowds, shorter shorts, and more flashbacks from our vintage Chicago Marathon photos

1990 chicago marathon winners in the mens and women’s classes are martini pitayo (left) and Aurora Cunha (right) | CST

We searched through our archives for highlights from past Chicago Marathons stretching back to the early 1980s.

The Windy City was no match for the windbreakers Chicago Marathon runners sported during the ‘90s.

And who wouldn’t be determined enough to finish a marathon when both Olivia Newton-John’s “Physical” and Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger” sat at the top of 1982’s Billboard chart?

Chicago’s famous marathon started with 4,200 runners its inaugural year, on Sept. 25, 1977, and grew to have 29,256 registered runners right before the new millennium in the Oct. 24, 1999 race, according to the Chicago Marathon website.

We searched through our archives for highlights from the Chicago Marathon (briefly known as “America’s Marathon”) throughout history and rounded up some of our favorites.

Click through the gallery below for a blast from the past:

Highlights:

America’s Marathon 1980 Chicago headed North on Dearborn.

1992 Chicago marathon runner Linda Somers

It was cold and rainy, but people lined the neighbor-hoods cheering for the runners October 21, 1984.

Norway’s Ingrid Kristiansen the world’s fastest woman marathoner, has entered America’s Marathon/Chicago 1985, announces race officials. Kristiansen, who set a new woman’s world record at the London Marathon in April, is one of as many as 100 elite athletes expected to compete in the Oct. 20 race, sponsored annually by Beatrice Companies, Inc. for the benefit of the Chicago Boys and Girls Clubs.

Spectators cheer on runners in the Chicago Marathon.

Larry Moon, running in the 1984 Chicago Marathon.