01-05-13

getting ready for the los angeles at night new year's half marathon

--------

getting to pershing square to park was a nightmare.  it took almost 1.5hrs to travel 0.5 miles...

if the race hadn't started late (9:15pm instead of 9:00pm) we would've been late.  we exited the car at 9pm!

there were no signs directing people where the start line was, and i felt bad for "regular" people who decided that it would be a good night to just go out...

there were also no visible signs to detour them out of the way of road closures.

getting ready to start!

 there were a lot of hills...
we ran about 4 miles to get to dodger stadium, then we looped around and in and about for another 4 miles, until we exited the area and headed back to downtown.

 this was inside dodger stadium, which looked like crap!
seats were pulled out, there were big gaping holes everywhere...
it looked really sad.

 braces twins!
oh wait, no, i mean it's a mom-and-daughter team
a girl passing out free naked juice samples commented to us post-race:
"did you guys run together?  cool!  i wish my mom would run with me"

 finally all done!
it was getting close to midnight by the time we were done.
after walking over to the post-race area and milling around for a bit, it was past midnight when we got back to the car...which was an awful 20+ minute walk away.  boo.
it was cold and windy by that time...
i vote for closer parking to the finish line as opposed to the start line.