Former Chicago Cubs star-turned-ambassador has announced he is running the 2026 Bank of America Chicago Marathon — and in true Rizzo fashion, he’s doing it all for a good cause.
Rizzo announced the news on social media Thursday, the same day the marathon revealed it set a fundraising record in 2025.
“In 2025, the event raised $47.1 million for local and national organizations, and we’re excited to contribute to that effort in 2026,” the baseball icon wrote on X.
He revealed he will be running to benefit his Rizzo Foundation.
The 2016 World Series star officially retired in September before joining the Cubs as an ambassador.
As a cancer survivor himself, Rizzo has a long history of raising money and awareness for pediatric cancer research and patients.
“My passion for raising money for pediatric cancer comes from something I lived through myself. Before I was a World Series champ or even close to the big leagues, I was an 18-year-old kid trying to chase a dream. Then I got hit with a diagnosis I never saw coming—Hodgkin’s lymphoma,” he wrote on his fundraising page. “Going through chemo was brutal. It was scary, painful, and completely threw my life off track. But even in the middle of all that, what really opened my eyes was seeing the families around me. Parents sleeping in hospital chairs, kids fighting like absolute warriors, siblings trying to keep it together—it was humbling.”
Rizzo said he saw firsthand the toll a cancer battle takes on an entire family.
The Anthony Rizzo Foundation focuses on supporting cancer patients and their families — and Rizzo plans to use next year’s race to continue to build on what the foundation has already done.
He set a lofty goal of raising $100,000.
Running for a charity is one of the many ways to participate in the 2026 Chicago Marathon — and one of only a few options still left to runners who didn’t win the lottery drawing announced Thursday.
The drawing for the 2026 event is slated was held Thursday, with more than 200,000 applicants waiting to see if they were part of the guaranteed entry group, which also includes legacy finishers, time qualifiers, Distance Series finishers and deferred 2025 runners.
But for those who don’t make that cut, charity and tour operator entries are still available, though organizers say spots are “filling quickly.”
“Running for charity gives participants a unique opportunity to make the miles on their marathon journey more meaningful,” the marathon said in a release Thursday.
Those looking to run through an official charity program will need to raise a minimum of $2,200 for their cause.
While each year’s race continues to set records across the city, organizers have announced a major shift in their latest fundraising numbers.
The 2025 race raised a record $47.1 million for charity, “smashing” last year’s record-setting number by $11 million. That brings the total amount raised since 2002 to more than $405 million.
And as the event looks forward to 2026, that number is expected to continue to climb, with a third of the 55,000 runners participating expected to race on behalf of a charity.
A list of official charities and information on how to register by joining a charity team can be found here.
“The countdown to October 11, 2026 is on, let the training begin!” Rizzo wrote.
