My first time at this race was last year. What can I say other than it poured buckets. Putting that aside, I can’t wait for this year.
The expo is really nice. I spent a lot of time filling my goodie bag with free stuff. They had a car with all the registered participants names printed on it. It was fun to look for your name. Plenty of vendors.
This a point to point race so you have to take buses to the start line or get dropped off at Dodger stadium. I did the bus thing. Bus rides are always fun because you get a chance to meet a couple of people before the race. You also will have a chance to get to know some of the other runners as you wait in the stadium. Tons of people do this race and the crowd is pretty friendly.
Parking is in one of the city lots, which you can pre-order before the race. They sell out, so pre-purchase is highly suggested.
The race is done in pre-set corrals based on your best marathon time. I have some pretty good times so I qualified for corral B. I like to start out in front of the crowd so that worked for me.
Even though it was pouring like cats and dogs, I liked running through the city. China town, down town LA, Avenue of the stars, and down Santa Monica blvd to the beach. I was totally surprised to see how many people cheered us on in the torrential rain storm.
They had a lot of tents set up for the post race, but with the arctic weather bearing down on us, most of the runners were just trying to get to their cars and to cover..
The only real problem was the bag check, which seems to be bad at most events. There are just certain things volunteers should not be in charge of. I was warned by a friend, and I put a big, red strip of tape on my bag so it was easy to see. They found it very fast, but others were left standing in the cold weather yelling at the poor volunteers. Lately some of the races have been using Fed-x for bag check. I think this is a great idea! I have seen less complaints on the message boards when they use fed-x. I hope LA figures this out.
Great way to see the city is run through it. Also, this course is REALLY flat. I think it is mostly downhill.
I am hoping this next year that it will be a little better weather (sure couldn’t be worse). I would have really enjoyed spending the day in Venice and on the pier with the family after the race. Hopefully this year!