LA Marathon 2025
MARCH 16-Race Day
LA Marathon Expo-Dodger Stadium
March 16, 2025
Early afternoon on a rainy Friday I left work and headed to Dodger Stadium to visit the Los Angeles marathon Expo. The marathon Expo is always the first way that a runner connects with the marathon experience, and it is always exciting.
Here in LA the Expo has been held at Dodger Stadium since 2021. This feels appropriate since this is the same site as the marathon start line staging area so it is nice to see the parking lot and the race area prior to showing up early Sunday morning when it will look very different.
My last marathons were all in other cities, so it is nice to come back here and reconnect as a local having home turf advantage.
But it is not always an advantage it was much easier to get to the start of the race from my hotel in Berlin and Dublin in fact in Dublin my hotel was just a block away from the start and finish of the race. The ritual here in Los Angeles is for me to drive from my home in Eagle Rock which is in east LA all the way to century city park in a parking structure and then take a bus back to Dodger Stadium and to avoid traffic I have to do this around 3:30 AM which puts me in Dodger Stadium roughly around 4:15 AM and then I have a few hours of waiting around and trying to stay warm.
I have made the mistake in previous years of trying to minimize that waiting time but then I get stuck in major traffic with all of the race participants taking the residential streets around century city doing the same thing I'm doing so I would rather get to century city early and maybe this year I will just camp in my car a little bit longer in the parking lot then take the bus but then there's the issue of bathroom lines the point is there's a lot to figure out and take care of even before you can seed yourself in the corral and stand with your fellow runners at the starting line
So in a weird way when you cross that starting line and you are facing 26.2 miles there's actually a feeling of relief that you've done all of the things necessary just to get here and in a sense the rest is easy because now all you have to focus on is just running and hopefully you've done everything correctly with your training with your diet well with your choice of gear and you can actually just enjoy running.
The Los Angeles marathon is very well organized and I've always been pleased with all of the logistics and services that are available and make the experience enjoyable considering there are 40,000 runners it's very impressive and no matter what there's always going to be long lines at the porta potties but I do think they've got everything well managed and I definitely appreciate that there are water stations at every mile and restrooms along the route as well as fuel stations.
So here is a list of some landmarks along the route Dodger Stadium, Chinatown dragon gate, Los Angeles City Hall, Dorothy Chandler pavilion, Echo Park Lake, Pantages theater, capital records tower, Hollywood and vine, Hollywood Walk of fame, Grauman's Chinese theater, Beverly Hills City Hall, rodeo Dr., and historic route 66. And at 22 miles there is a hairpin turn around and 4 miles later you end in century city
Training for the LA Marathon