I live and work close to Downtown LA, and I travel primarily via public transportation. So for me, the expo and the start/finish areas of this race were super convenient – they were all right by Metro stations, so there was no difficulty getting my packet the day before and getting to the race on time the day of. It was an inaugural race, so hiccups were to be expected, but there was a 4-5 mile section in the middle that were just endless loops within the Dodger stadium parking lot (the hills didn’t bother me, but just being inside the park for almost an hour made it feel like we were running in some demonic hill course within an MC Escher painting). I’m sure this was done so they could make up the miles for the half marathon without having to deal with more permitting for street closures, but it got really tedious after a while. Also, as a nighttime course lighting is super important, but there were a few sections that were poorly lit (including a pothole-ridden section within the stadium as well as a good portion of the Santee Alley area near skid row, which I’m sure freaked out a lot of the out-of-towners). Other than that, I was pleased to see tons of water stations and sufficient Gatorade stations, and the volunteers were night. Also, according to my Garmin, the course was a bit longer than 13.1 miles. Overall, it was a great inaugural showing. I will definitely run the course again if the amount of running within Dodger stadium is minimized.
