Location: Los Angeles, CA
Time of Year: Mid-March
Distance options: Full Marathon (26.2 miles) (5k offered the day before)
Year(s) completed: 2011 (full marathon)
So when I ran the Honda LA Marathon (2011), the conditions were a bit out of the ordinary. We had 48º pouring rain with 40mph winds the entire time. That being said, it was still a decent marathon.
The course was pretty great, deemed “the Stadium to the Sea”, starting at LA Dodger Stadium and ending near the Santa Monica Peer on Ocean Avenue. It went through many of the towns burrows, including Downtown LA, Echo Park, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Century City, Westwood, and Santa Monica. There was lots of decent scenery to look at, and being out of town made it even more interesting.
The expo was decently fun, with lots of vendors giving away a ton of stuff. The main sponsors in 2011 were Honda and K-Swiss.
In-race support was okay but could have been way better. There was water almost every mile, but because of the poor weather I think a lot of the mid-race entertainment and other support had bailed. There was supposed to be a GU-station in the last 10k and despite being towards the front-ish realm of runners, the GU folks had already vacated.
The atmosphere overall was decent before the race, but during and after more closely resembled an episode of Survivor–people miserably cold and just trying to get warm and get out of the weather.
Post-race festivities that had been planned sounded promising, but since mother nature had taken over, any possible fun no longer mattered. There was a stage with supposed live music and massage and food tents, but no runners (including myself) seemed to care about any of this since there were no tents or places to protect vulnerable runners. Everyone was more concerned with getting dry and getting warm. Many were treated for hypothermia and -like conditions.
Overall with such a decent course, I would like to try this race again. I’d hope for better weather but hope organizers are better prepared just in case nature doesn’t agree.
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