amazing tour of LA!!! (Los Angeles, Long Beach: neighborhoods, live, triathlon)

[BRinSM]

I just completed the LA Triathlon, and although it was exhausting, it was an absolute blast and took me on a tour of much of the city. We began the morning swimming in the ocean in Venice. The bike ride (the most scenic part of the race) went from Venice, through Mar Vista, past Palms and Culver City, up to the Miracle Mile and Hancock Park, past Koreatown and MacArthur Park, then up through Echo Park, Little Armenia, and Silver lake, before transitioning to the run downtown at the Staples Center. The run was a 2 lap course from the Staples Center, down 11th then up Grand to the Disney Concert Hall and back. Wow, that hill was brutal!!!!! Anyways, I made it out alive and even hit my target finish time to the minute.

Did anyone else participate in the triathlon?

[Charles]

I did the LA Marathon in 1991. On a huge scale, the marathon takes you through many different neighborhoods in LA; each neighborhood is cheering you on in their own way. What is interesting is you smell all this ethnic food as you run and you start fantasizing about food by the end of the race.

[streetscenes]

Way to go BRinSM! Sounds like a great event. What's the mileage on this triathalon? I'm new to endurance events and will be doing the Long Beach 1/2 marathon in October and then the Pasadena 1/2 in November. The more I get into running the more the triathalon thing intrigues me, maybe in a couple of years.

[BRinSM]

The triathlon was a total of about 33 miles (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run). If you can run a half marathon, you should have no problem complete a triathlon as long as you can swim and ride a bike. anyways, it is a lot of fun, although some people consider me a bit of a mashochist for my training regimine and the pain i put myself through on race day :-)

[Mike121]

I'm doing the Malibu Sprint Tri next week (a much shorter event). It is good fun because it is a chance to ride a bike along PCH in Malibu without competing with cars.

But the LA tri is too serious for me! Good job.

[happ]

Congratulations! I admire those who can compete in a grueling triathlon [wouldn't the swimming be best at the end of the race to cool off? or maybe people would be more likely to drown from all the exhaustion of the bike & run].

[amc760]

Sounds like a lot of fun!
I'd love to try something like that one of these days.

[streetscenes]

Originally Posted by BRinSM

The triathlon was a total of about 33 miles (1.5k swim, 40k bike, 10k run). If you can run a half marathon, you should have no problem complete a triathlon as long as you can swim and ride a bike. anyways, it is a lot of fun, although some people consider me a bit of a mashochist for my training regimine and the pain i put myself through on race day :-)

That is a great achievement. Definetly worth all of the work you put into it. I can swim and ride a bike, so maybe in a couple of years I'll be out there. First a half this year and a full marathon next. I do like the idea of the different kinds of training and taking some of the punishment off of my legs.

Something occured to me. How did they get everybody back from Staples to Venice after the finish? Did you load up on a bus with your bike and the rest of your stuff (that would be a stinky ride)?

[BRinSM]

they offered a shuttle service, but many people (including myself) had friends and family to root them on downtown at the finish so they could get a ride home. i heard some people ended up riding their bikes back all the way back down Venice Blvd to the beach. I don't think my legs could have handled another 15 miles at that point though, good thing my wife was there.

[streetscenes]

I completed my first endurance event this past weekend, the Long Beach Half Marathon. It was a great tour of the harbor/beach in LB. Race starts off on Shoreline Drive, over Queensway Bridge, past the Queen Mary, back over the river, around the lighthouse, past the aquarium and harbor and then down the beach on the bike path. Long Beach truly has a long beach, around 4 miles from the harbor down to Belmont Shores area. Race then returned on Ocean Boulevard to downtown. It was a fantastic morning and a beautiful day.

As I ran along the bike path on the beach I was thinking about the current proposal to take down the break water in San Pedro Bay. Long Beach residents review plans to modify breakwater - Los Angeles Times Some of the properties along the beach would definetly be threatned with flooding on the lower levels.