LAX Beach Run

I was on a long overnight in Los Angeles, the City of Angels. I needed to get a run in, and the beach was my only goal. Though the water was not right by my hotel, it wasn't far enough to deter me from seeing waves crash against a sandy beach.

The run started with a nice jog out the front of the LAX Sheraton. The hotel is in a line of hotels within a mile of the airport. As you exit the hotel and head west, you make a right turn as soon as possible to put yourself on 96th Street. This is the first real street you run into.

You know you are headed the right direction because you can see signs for LAX, and as you reach Sepulveda Blvd, it is way too busy to consider crossing anywhere but at a crosswalk. To get across the road, you actually won't be using a crosswalk...you have to climb stairs, go across an overpass, and then go back down the stairs on the other side.

The overpass has a set of stairs you can see pictured by the vertical sign. The stairs lead up to the top of the overpass, which gives a great view of the airport (I didn't get a picture). Once you cross the overpass, the real run begins. It's 3.2 miles from the bottom of the steps until you set foot on a sandy beach. This is a pretty section of the run, and there are nice views of planes taking off over the ocean. The sidewalks are wide and well-kept. As I ran, there were multiple crews doing yard work on the trees and grass, so thankfully, there were no tree branches dipping into my face.

There were flowers along portions of the path and not too much traffic, so no worries about that smell of exhaust. If you look out for them, you can even see a few A380s (the biggest commercial airliner in the world) among the aircraft taking off.

As the airport road adjacent to the runways ends, the path quickly changes into a steep uphill climb through a neighborhood, with a sandy path along yet another chain link fence. This is a nice portion of the run, with tall grass and nice cars sitting in front of the near beach-front housing.

The pay off at the top of the hill is a scenic view of the ocean. You follow the path back down the hill and the interesting part starts. There might be a wonderful option for actually getting down to the water, but I honestly don't know what that is.

I chose to descend a very steep section of sand (and got some in my shoes), but if you are patient enough to run along the road pictured above, there has to be a route specifically intended for that purpose. On this particular run, I went with the less thought-out option, because time along the beach was my my highest priority. Once you are below, there is a wonderful wide path filled with runners, cyclists, rollerbladers, and pedestrians.

The path (though not pictured) leads on for miles in both directions. I didn't have any water, but that didn't pose a problem. The path has a bathroom and water fountain facility every mile. I appreciated the flexibility this gave the entire beach-front portion.

This was an amazing run. I loved the breeze from the ocean, the sound of kids playing on the beach, and the ocean spray off the waves. The entire run is well maintained, and if you are willing to run on 8 miles of concrete, then the rest is scenic beauty. My one piece of advice is to not get too up close and personal with the waves. I got a little too curious, and my effort to touch the waves with my hands was rewarded with a pair of Brooks running shoes filled with salt water. This made my final 5 miles or so pretty interesting, but it couldn't even come close to ruining my first California beach-front run.

This was taken just seconds before my shoes were soaked by these very waves.