Los Angeles - Team RiceCracker

We run the Los Angeles marathon.

Race Report: Los Angeles Marathon

The course was fantastic with a mix of gently rolling hills to break up the otherwise fairly flat course. The weather held out and was just right. Aid stations were more than plentiful.

We didn’t expect a blistering pace as we were both recovering from a chest cold. We both paced well and finished strong. Annie lent a fair amount of moral support to another runner over the last 5 miles, slowing her time but boosting her karma.

The downfall of this race was the organization, or lack thereof. Packet pickup was chaos. By the time we arrived, they had run out of men’s shirts and the situation was handled poorly. No communication was given, instead, a piece of paper was shoved at you. On this paper, you wrote your bib number and shirt size. Supposedly a shirt will arrive in the mail but I am not holding my breath.

We then attempted to get a bag, for gear check. At first, the volunteers denied having any, despite standing in front of many large boxes, clearly containing gear check bags. Upon asking, “are you sure you don’t have any?”, one bag was offered. Unfortunately, this lead to a severe scolding by another volunteer, a confiscation of the bag, and the statement: “bags can be picked up tomorrow”. We didn’t press the issue and instead sauntered past the exhibition booths and out the door.

The morning of the race, there was no organization for the seeded corrals. Instead, it was first come first serve. Furthermore, the rolling start was not based on corrals, but instead, some arbitrary point. We ended up in wave two, which is realistically ahead of our pace time. Ironically, we passed countless people who were walking after the first mile. The start was crowded and frankly a mess for several miles.

The finish wasn’t any better. The mixture of how they allowed spectators to enter and yet not enter the finish area created large swollen columns of people desperately trying to find each other. We were surprised to see such rookie work from a race of this size and age. Weird.

That all being said, it was a great race. The course makes up for the other shortcomings.