This was my first marathon, and the new 2010 course was a great one to complete for my first. It went through a lot of destination parts of LA, and ended at the ocean. Some of the hills were pretty challenging, but the last few miles were downhill all the way.

Minus a few logistical issues (gridlock in Santa Monica at the finish), I think they really got it right this year. Hopefully, they'll keep the same course for 2011.

This is my 76th marathon (13th L.A. in a row).
" Expo layout was ridiculous. Having so much property available at Dodger Stadium, why cram it into an area the size of a postage stamp? It was hot, it was crowded (because of narrow areas available for walking). Instead of wanting to browse and shop, I picked up bib and left as quickly as possible.

" Morning shuttle commute. A disaster (through no fault of the driver). TOO MUCH traffic getting to start line. A lot of people were anxious to get to start so they opted to walk in and out of traffic on the freeway. Unfortunately by the time I got off the bus, it was too late to do anything other than walk to starting corral.

" What's with the start line? On the streets of L.A. you have at least the width of five lanes to accommodate 25,000 runners. At Dodger Stadium we were packed in tighter than a can of sardines.

" I parked two blocks away from finish line which is less than one mile (.7) to freeway on ramp it took me one and one half hours (1 1/2) to drive that less than one mile distance which was extremely frustrating and one hour+ to drive home after that. Santa Monica has only one freeway out...the 10. Downtown L.A. has the 5, 10, 110, 101 so many more options.

" Course was enjoyable, however, it was not as fast or downhill as advertised. Volunteers and entertainment was good.

" I live here but I will not plan to run L.A. again. The medal is not worth trying to elbow your way through the Expo or sitting in traffic for hours.

" Move Expo back to Convention Center. Move finish line back to downtown L.A.

LA sold out their Marathon for the first and last time Sunday. It would take me a novel to explain all the faults so let me just give you the bullet points.
-Waited in line for over an hour in the hot sun to pick up my bib.
-Walked over a mile from my car to the Expo.
-they ran out of all Men's shirts and almost all Women's shirts. For 136$ this is inexcusable.
-Race day Traffic was worse than feared. People were literally jumping out of their cars on the FREEWAY and running two miles to the start.
-The Start was pushed back TWICE!
-Not enough toilets and than they tried to close them with thousands of people waiting in line.
-No one was in the correct Corrals so you had walkers in the sub-4 hour and sub 3 start.
-48 hours later still don't have the correct official time and some people don't have a time at all!
Some Good
- Enjoyed the course it was very nice and the volunteers and spectators were top notch.
I will never run the LA Marathon Again.

7th time running LA Marathon. Scheduling a 5k that ends near the time the expo opens on Sat was a nightmare for both drivers and parking lot attendants. 45 minutes to park from entering stadium. Grid lock galore !!!! After walking more than half a mile to expo, I felt like as if I was cattle trying to move to the very end of expo to pick up bib and goodie bag. I always look forward to the LA Expo and was sooooooo disappointed. I doubt the merchants made much money. I along with others could not get out of there fast enough and that was at 10:30 am....already hot. I was disappointed w/ no Poster or pin. And thought for the 25th anniversary. And a new route there would be a special medal or something to commemorate. The starting line was so narrow for so many people. I felt like a sardine in a small can and to have to wait for the late race start was very uncomfortable. We took the 5:30 shuttle and did ok; but we knew the shuttles behind us were not going to make it in time. With all the room at Dodger Stadium I don't understand the lack of parking entrances and spots for us to park in another area the 5K'rs parked.

Logistical nightmare is an understatement. Keep the expo at convention center.

Course was pretty nice compared to the previous years.

Water stations were unorganized, especially in the first few miles. Some had no water/PowerAde ready.

And I didn't notice until the day before... no gel/GU? Seriously?

I know that this sounds negative and all, but the course itself was pretty nice.

Amazing spectators!!!!!

First of all, the course and support form the hundreds of thousands of spectators was memorable. They deserve a special thank you on the front page.

My only complaint was on the organization of the event. The Expo was very crowded. It was held at Dodger Stadium. OUTSIDE!!!! Plenty of room to do it right the first time!!! Instead all vendors, speakers, registration, etc were crammed into a small area!!! Why?? No excuse for this. The runners deserve better than this. Traffic into the stadium for the expo and race was inexplicably horrendous. The stadium supports over 50,000 spectators, but could not handle 25,000!! Why?

The race was delayed due to people not being able to get into the stadium. The organizers should be happy that the day was overcast. If Sunday would have been a replica of Saturday, a 7:47 start would have brought on numerous medical emergencies.

Lastly, the starting corrals. Again, poor or inexperienced organizing. The sub 4 and sub 3 were impossible to get into. The corrals were not very wide. YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE STADIUM TO USE. Don't screw it up at the start.

I will try again next year and see if any of these comments are considered. Good luck.

This was my first marathon. I thought to myself, "I must be crazy to run 26.2 miles." Well, I did it. I let my family, encouragements, life experiences, and compassion for others be my motivation and strength, which gave me the determination to fight through the mental weakness and physical pain to finish the race. It was another one of those life-changing experiences.... :o)

The stadium-to-sea course was very nice and fast, with the major hills in the first third and the last third largely downhill. Would have liked to see snacks provided during the latter part of the race, not just water and gatorade. I was running on low near the end, but luckily brought along a couple of power bars. Both the expo and race day were not very well organized, not very many signs directing where to pick up bibs or where to line up before the race. Traffic was horrendous with a two-hour shuttle ride (provided by the race) to go just 15 miles to the start. Definitely need to leave EARLY for this one. This is a race to run once, but nothing memorable to warrant a repeat unless you live in the LA area.

My 5th marathon and 2nd LA marathon.

Course: The course is better than last year from a touristic perspective, ie it shows much more the classic LA, with many landmarks (Dodger Stadium, Downtown, Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Santa Monica; not quite every mile as they said, but close). The course also avoids the bleak areas that have plagued the courses from the previous years. That said, from a running perspective this is not an easy course. The overall net downhill is misleading because if you take out the 3 big downhills after Dodger Stadium (mile1), San Vicente (mile 14), and San Vicente (miles23-25), it is rolling hills from miles 2-13, with hard climbs at miles 3 and 5, and this takes a toll, leading to very fatigued runners once you reach the easy part (miles 16-26.2). There is also a nasty little climb before mile 21 that cut many people's legs. So don't expect a PR, or if you want to you will need to work hard on the hills during your training.

Organization:
Big improvement needs to be done on the organization. I can't understand how people could give out 5 marks here. This was an overall logistical nightmare. The expo was smallish, cramped, and very warm (under tents on a parking lot at Dodger Stadium). Many people got their age wrong on their bibs, while their age was correct in the system. Getting to the start at Dodger Stadium was a nightmare, as all the access ways were clogged due to (1) the convergence of thousands of vehicles to only two entry points and (2) streets closures in downtown and around the stadium. I ended up being dropped 1.7 miles from the start and had to walk all the way up. There were people getting off vehicles who started walking on the 110 Freeway ! Many people arrived late, and as a consequence the start had to be pushed by ½ hour. At the stadium there were not enough port-a-johns and starting corrals were not strictly enforced (saw many people jumping the sub-4hour corral where I was placed). The organization on the course itself was excellent, with well-stocked aid stations and great volunteers; however, there were no gels, only liquids, so bring your owns. Another issue with the organization came from the fact that many people did not get their time recorded properly. This was maybe due to the new B-tag system attached to the bibs, instead of the classical chips or D-tags attached to shoes. The finish line was very crowded and it was hard to find family and friends. I did not go down to the beach party so can't comment there. However the medal was awesome; much better than the shirt, which could have used some of the design.

Spectators: great support throughout; fun to see the drag queens in WeHo, and the cheerleaders in Brentwood were deafening. Some pretty funny signs too (at mile 5: the Kenyans are already at mile 15 !). Overall great .

In conclusion it is a finally a great destination marathon in Los Angeles for out-of-towners and also for locals because the course is very scenic and shows most of what LA has to offer, but don't expect a PR, or you will need to work very hard at it. But they need to work out the logistical kinks, because there were too many of those this year.

Yes, the point to point course is a good idea, but the organization and logistics were completely mishandled. You cannot allow anyone to drop runners off at the Stadium...runners must take the shuttles to avoid 1-1/2 to 2 hour shuttle rides since the traffic was so awful getting into the Stadium parking lot, due to people dropping off runners. We noticed that getting on the shuttles was easy...we found out why later; more than half of the runners were getting dropped off. Having the way too few port-a-potties on the wrong side of the course (so runners had to run across the wheelchair and elite women's first mile), no access to the four hours plus corral except at the end of the chute (after waiting in line for bathrooms for thirty minutes; by the way even though the Stadium first level was open, the bathroom lines were even worse in there), a half hour late start, running the first mile in the parking lot...

The course itself after than was interesting and very well supported by the volunteers and spectators...no complaints there. But there were more hills than advertised. The last five miles or so in Santa Monica all the way to the finish were very nice.

Lastly, once you finished, you were thrust into an area way too crowded with people not even connected to the marathon...having to walk half way up the pier through the tourists, down to the sand and then across to the 'finish party' which was just more booths like at the too small expo did not consider the needs of the runners to decompress for at least a few minutes. And the traffic for those picking up people in Santa Monica was a mess.

These things can be fixed since the course and race itself is OK, but get a company that knows how to put on a large running event and that tries to get more runners' inputs.