For those of you still mourning the unnecessary and idiotic death of Los Angeles Marathons on Sundays in March, there’s a new one coming. In March. On a Sunday. In Pasadena — coincidentally a city that could be argued as having a proportionally greater number of houses of worship per capita than L.A. Hallelujah!

You might recall the inaugural Pasadena Marathon scheduled for November 16 was all set to go off only to be canceled because of  air quality issues in the midst of the wildfires burning at the time. Well, its organizers — a group called Pasadena Forward — have gone all carpe diem in planting a flag on Sunday, March 22 as the rescheduled date for the first-ever event, ably filling the void left by the L.A. Marathon after its unceremonial exorcism to a potentially marathon-unfriendly Memorial Day from its typical first Sunday in March.

That heinous destruction of tradition came about after city officials caved to pressure from churches that had long damned the associated street closures as the reason why their congregations dropped so drastically that one day out of the year. Thus, when the event’s new organizers took over this year (under the ownership of the L.A. Dodger-owning McCourts), they did so basically being forced to heed this silly “Never on Sunday!” civic mandate.

Pasadena not only says to hell with that noise, but has gone proactive in providing special race-day travel information on its website offering congregants optimal routes to the churches in proximity to the course whose attendance might otherwise be impacted by the event.

Now there’s an idea: working together for manageable solutions rather than working apart to create monumental problems. Pasadena just made L.A. look reeeeeeally stoopid.

Related posts:

1. Marathon’s Bike Tour Route Finally Posted!
2. Pasadena Marathon cancelled due to fire induced bad air.
3. 2007 L.A. Marathon Course Drastically Altered
4. Half Marathon – full pain in the ass
5. LA Marathon NIMBY