Sisters Running to 50: LA Marathon Race Review 3/20/11

LA Marathon (AKA Monsoon Marathon)
March 20, 2011

Finish Time: 5:00:49

Course Map: A Landmark at Every Mile

The Expo at the LA Dodgers Stadium

Hands-down this was a HUGE expo! It was located at the Dodgers stadium parking lot which was pretty cool. There were tons of vendors there. Rumor has it that they doubled the expo size because the year before it was a dud. We had a blast though- there were so many booths giving out things- Coffee, rubios, cliff bars, rice,

Crazy KSWISS Men at the expo

Race Day Forecast:
100% chance of rain.... bad idea to ditch the garbage bags at Mile 3 because it started raining at the start and didn't stop. It would go from heavy pouring to some light rain, and eventually even at mile 23 we hit the hail and side winds as we came to the finish at the Santa Monica pier. Brrrrr!!! This is the only race where our teeth were chattering from the cold throughout. This was definitely a race to remember!

At the start of the race

Sister's Top 5:

1. A landmark is definitely at every mile- you run through China town, see the Hollywood sign, run on Hollywood Blvd with the stars, run Rodeo drive, etc.

2. The spectator support was amazing! The weather was terrible for this marathon, not just bad but REALLY bad with a torrential downpour, flooding, huge puddles, and even hail at mile 23. Despite all of this, there were people throughout the route cheering for us with smiles and hilarious signs for support!

3. Great expo- tons of booths and freebies!

4. The LA marathon face book site and emails were nice to receive during training. They definitely work to create excitement for the upcoming race.

5. There were many aide stations with Gatorade and water!

Look at the Rain

Sister's Bottom 5:

1. The race started 30 minutes late for no apparent reason- who does that? We could have used those 30 minutes to have some time without the rain.

2. The expo was great but it was at the Dodger stadium parking lot with quite a hike to get there- not the best for legs that need to rest before a race. And a parking lot for an expo isn't the greatest spot.

3. The finish line was a disaster! Yes the weather was horrible and that is certainly not their fault, however, there was literally about a mile walk to the race after party/gear/bus pick-up and they had no organization for the family reunion, line to the busses, etc. (NO SIGNS for us to follow). This meant that families who were picking up runners created a tight space for the marathoners to walk through to get out of the finish line area and to the race party/gear/bus pick-up. We literally felt like cattle walking through a tiny feedlot line.... and to top it off because we had just run and it was still freezing rain, people literally had hypothermia and we had no idea where to go to get warm. Back to the spectator support- hotels opened their doors for us and many runners including ourselves sought shelter and warmed up in large heated rooms they had opened to us with coffee, tea, and plenty of food (Major plus for them!).

The theme for this race was,"Just Keep Swimming," -Finding Nemo

4. Although related to the finish line fiasco- the gear pick-up was so bad that it deserves it's own point. Once we FINALLY made it to the gear pick-up, we walked into complete chaos with runners in the trucks throwing gear bags everywhere. There was no organization and it was a miracle that we eventually found our bags 20 minutes later. Note: The weather made these situations worse, however, marathonguide users already noted the two aforementioned problems before when the weather has been nice.
5. We LOVE to shop for marathon merchandise and were underwhelmed by the options. We each bought a cute shirt, but there really wasn't much schwag to peruse through.