2010 L.A. Marathon finish line

The 2011 Los Angeles Marathon takes place this Sunday, largely repeating 2010′s “Stadium to the Sea” route.  Last year’s route successfully highlighted various Los Angeles area landmarks, including Dodgers Stadium, Rodeo Drive, and the Santa Monica Pier near the finish line.  However, I was at the finish line last year, and the popularity of the Marathon made things very tough on spectators there.  For example, it was nearly impossible to walk across Ocean Avenue even at points well beyond the finish line.  Additionally, the sidewalk on the East Side of Ocean Ave. was so jammed that it looked hazardous to be there.  I wondered whether it would be feasible to construct a temporary pedestrian foot bridge over Ocean using the same scaffolding materials that were used for the finish line itself (see photo at top).

The good news is that the Marathon planners apparently have taken a stab at trying to ameliorate some of the crowd congestion and pedestrian street access problems that occurred last year.  Specifically, in addition to better access for runners getting to the starting line, the finish line has been moved several blocks North down Ocean Ave.  Hopefully, this will allow for a real pedestrian crossing zone on Ocean well past the finish line, which would not interfere with the recuperating runners who have just finished the race.

If that’s the case, then I’m looking forward to an even more successful Marathon finish line party this year.

What a day for Los Angeles!  The new Los Angeles Marathon route sent runners and spectators to a number of L.A.’s most famous streets and landmarks, including Dodgers Stadium, Hollywood Blvd., Sunset Blvd., and Rodeo Drive, before one last turn from San Vicente Blvd. and a spectacular finish along Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica, overlooking the Pacific.  I biked up to the finish line, watched a bunch of the estimated 25,000 runners finish, surrounded by many thousands of enthusiastic spectators, and then checked out the finish line party in the nearby Santa Monica Pier parking lot.

More pics and recap, after the jump

It’s that time again! I understand the LA Marathon is a world-class athletic event offering us humans the possibility to excel and revel in our physicality, but for me, the LA Marathon means one thing: road closures.

This year’s route begins in downtown, heading south on Fig, and jogs around Exposition Park; proceeds west on Exposition Blvd. to jog south through Leimert Park; heads up to Rodeo ROAD via Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd; north on Crenshaw to Venice; then zigzags up La Cienega to Pico, executing a u-turn via San Vicente to Wilshire & 6th Street, heading east again through the Tar Pits area & Hancock Park; meanders around in Hancock Park/K-Town a little bit before heading to Olympic, pointed east; and then returns to its starting point downtown.

Plan your routes accordingly. The map is here.

Photo by mil8 via Creative Commons.

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.

It’s that time of year again I guess – the time when Silver Lake residents and visitors get to be inconvenienced by LA’s little-known and even less cared-about HALF MARATHON.

The race begins at 730am and follows this course.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you -