The Los Angeles Carerra de Los Muertos supports Olvera Street Merchants Association Foundation, a group dedicated to preserving cultural events on historic Olvera Street in Los Angeles. OSMA sponsors a nine day Dia de Los Muertos festival on Olvera Street which includes traditional performers, altars, face painting, a novenario procession, and more. A fun event that supports cultural preservation? YES, count me in!

(Note that Generic Events, the race production company, also holds Carerra de Los Muertos events in San Diego, the 2016 event benefitted Corazon de Vida, a charity that supports abandoned and orphaned children in Baja, Mexico; Sadly, the 2016 Phoenix event had to be cancelled due to low registration numbers--a cryin' shame if the LA event was representative of what this group can do! There was also a virtual option any runner could choose.)

Actually, I only learned about the race by accident, since I don't live in Los Angeles. I had planned to travel to LA for the Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon, and the Carrera de Los Muertos was scheduled for the day beforehand. (My SF runner friends were jealous, as they wanted to have an SF Bay Area event but there wasn't one--just the virtual option.) So I decided to run this one too, and tried to convince everyone to join me. Most already had plane tickets, but my friend Brianna lives in LA so she joined me. We had a blast!

There were approximately 4000 people pre-registered for the Los Angeles event, according to the last emails from the organizers. A pre-race packet pickup was available at Olvera Street on Thursday night, and as an incentive to get your packet early the first 300 to pick up got a free Carrera de Los Muertos drawstring backpack. (Not only was the design nice, this one had a zippered section too, making it one of the better drawstring packs I've seen.) The only other option was to get your bib and shirt on race day.

The race was VERY easily accessible via public transportation, as Union Station is just across the street from Olvera Street. (Several muni lines go there.) I didn't really know where I was going, so I decided to follow some women who were on my train and clearly dressed for the event. When we exited the train and got up to street level there were a huge flock of runners inside Union Station! There is no possible way that even the most clueless non-Angelino could have gotten lost in between Union Station and the race. From what I could see, a number of people walked. There was ample parking in the nearby garage. The race website had a number of details wrong (cost of parking, which lines stop at Union Station), but a quick map check fixed most of them.

On-site packet pickup was a mob scene, but the volunteers did a great job of putting people into lines and handing out bibs. (This took me maybe 5 minutes, which impressed me very much!) The Carerra caters largely to the "fun run" crowd, though runners who wanted timing could add it for $5 during online registration. At packet pickup, bibs were assigned as registered runners collected them (not pre-assigned, like at races where they look up your name). The volunteer scanned the QR code on my receipt, saw which bib to hand me (timing chip), scanned it, and handed it to me. Nearby, another volunteer was separating safety pins into groups of four. From there I moved to the t-shirt line, which also moved quickly. The shirt is a black cotton tee with a red and white design printed on it. Some wore theirs for the race, I checked mine.

The bag check area consisted of some tables and a handful of volunteers. The last email from the event organizers strongly discouraged checking a bag (to the point that many people thought it wouldn't be an option). I put my number on my tee using some twisty-ties, and went to explore.

Olvera Street has a large central plaza with a parklet and a gazebo in the center. The race was set up off to one side (in the street, not the parklet). The stage had pre-race entertainment, including a mariachi band and a Zumba fitness warmup for the runners, and some fantastic Dia de Los Muertos statues/art. There was also a guy on tall stilts decked out for the occasion. Two of the booths were offering free face painting, though obviously it wasn't possible to paint 4000 faces (and also, I can't imagine what I'd look like with makeup and then race sweat all over my face).

Speaking of face painting, dressing for the occasion was definitely encouraged! There were some really fantastic and spirited costumes and makeup jobs out there. One participant wore face paint, a long wedding dress, and flowers in her hair. There were shirts and tights and skirts with themed elements, including some of the LuLaRoe Halloween collection, the Sparkle Athletic sugar skulls design, and many neat custom pieces. The men tended to either be totally decked out in a costume or makeup, or in plain ol' runner garb. Lots of women had on costume elements even if they were Serious Runners, including wreaths of faux marigolds in their hair (or on their run visors).

Speaking of serious runners, even though this event was targeted to the entire community, serious runners were well taken care of by the race. The pre-race announcer encouraged everyone to let the runners to the front of the corral, and for the most part everyone cooperated. While everyone received a finisher medal, there were also medals for the top three places in each age/gender division, and really cute painted clay sugar skull trophies for the top three men and women. Walkers and shufflers were also plenty welcome, and I loved seeing entire families out there engaging in healthy activity. (One of the nice things about not automatically timing everyone is that it keeps the cost down for the runners who don't care about timing, which makes it more affordable for families.) Every body type was represented, from athletic-cut to super curvy, as was every fitness level (from "I do 5ks in my sleep" to "5 whole k is a LONG way to walk"). There were also a lot of kids! I saw several women running and walking with babies strapped to them in carriers, and parents pushing babies in strollers. Some of the babies had on adorable little skeleton costumes, too.

The course itself was an out-and-back that went from Olvera Street through China Town and over a street overpass above the Los Angeles river before turning back on itself. This is a part of town I have never had any reason to see, so it was pretty cool to learn some new things and see some new sights. (The architecture on some of the buildings is just eye-poppingly cool, though you might have to look past the need for a coat of paint or a porch sweeping.) A few notable items included Phillipe's (famous for French-dip sandwiches), and a Buddhist garden altar (behind a building, we could see it from across a construction area).

The starting line also served as the finisher chute. After receiving medals, participants were given a great sparkling beverage, the name of which totally escapes me. (I wish I could remember it, as the stuff was delicious! It was a sparkling water with fruit flavors--I think the one I had was lemon--sweetened with cane sugar. The cool thing is that it wasn't super sweet like soda. The whole bottle had 60 calories, compared to about 120 for most cans of soda.) I'm not sure how popular it was with the group as a whole though, since I saw many half-consumed bottles at the recycling. I attribute this to Coca-Cola's ad campaigns that have aggressively targeted the Latinx community going back to the early 1980s. The irony that Coca-Cola was there sampling beverages was not lost on me. There were also oranges for participants, but I didn't take one since I was all sweaty and I'm sure my hands were gross. (I washed them before eating food I had to touch.)

Speaking of ironic race sponsors, Nestle was also there in full force. (For those not in the know, Nestle produces several products that are as aggressively targeted at the Latinx market as Coca-Cola's ad campaigns are, including Abuelita spiced hot chocolate and Nido infant formula.) Both Nestle and Coca-Cola saw a lot of foot traffic at their booths, which were well-placed for visibility purposes. Other booths included Clif Bar (with free bars from their new nut-butter-filled line), Chocolate Milk (Nestle, but separate from the booth with the other brands), the LA soccer team (with a soccer activity for kids), another LA sports team (sorry, wasn't paying attention), a group promoting sustainable energy, the Moustache Dash, and a few others. You could buy a button or postcard to support Olvera Street Merchants and see the prizes up by the gazebo.

Also up in the parklet, around the gazebo, were several Dia de Los Muertos altars, including one where runners could contribute photos or ofrendas. There were race-backdrops for photo ops (with long lines though). Musicians and dancers performed on the gazebo after the race, and some of the Olvera Street shops and restaurants opened for business.

Overall, I thought this race was very well done in terms of management (minus the few errors in the website and emails, which is why I docked it a star); the race was fun, the swag was cute, the required waits (bib, shirt) were negligible. The location was perfect--both appropriate culturally (Olvera Street) and for transit access. I don't travel for 5k races, but if Rock 'n' Roll LA is the same weekend as Carrera de Los Muertos next year, I will definitely recruit some more runners.

I've signed up for this race ever year, and every year I didn't get to run. This year, I did! Unfortunately I'm having some issues with my left hip, so "run" is a bit of a strong word. But more about that later.

Pre-race communications were great. There were enough emails to keep me informed of the important things and invite me to pre-race runs (I didn't get to attend those), but not a bunch of spammy random ad stuff. The "final race instructions" including bib pickup reminders were sent twice during the last week, once early in the week and once on Thursday, which I appreciated.

Bib pickup. This happened on Friday, 1-7 pm, at the Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland. I had pre-printed my waiver and written my bib number on it to ensure things went quickly. For those who didn't read the pre-race email, the bib numbers were posted and they had extra waivers on hand. I went around 2 pm (I work downtown) and the mandatory items (get bib and shirt) were painless and line-free.

Expo. This was held in conjunction with bib pickup, outside at the plaza. In addition to tents to buy The Town's Half Marathon merch and sign up for next year's races or the upcoming Golden Gate Half--reading this in 2016? Use code BIBRAVEGG to sign up for the 2016 Golden Gate Half and run with me!--there were also a number of sponsor and vendor booths. A number of them didn't apply to me directly (e.g. there was a window company, but I'm a renter) so I don't recall all of the businesses there. It was great to see booths from local businesses Hot Spot Yoga and P2P (a fitness/training gym). Whole Foods, one of the race sponsors, handed out goody bags, and Vega had a tasting tent. OrangeTheory Fitness had a "compete with us" promo where you could win prizes for doing burpees and such, and the Modesto Marathon had information on the 2017 races and were handing out arm warmers and shirts from the 2016 race. Overall, the expo was fun, had some swag for runners, and was a good size for the race and space.

Race Day, pre-race. The start/finish was also at Frank Ogawa Plaza, which meant there was plenty of parking. (I parked at my office, but friends told me they parked in the City Hall garage for free.) There were a bank of porta potties AND the portable hand-wash stations (more races need these!), and when I went past the runners had formed a single line--very efficient. The bag drop line was ridiculous when I got there, but to be fair I got in line with fewer than 10 minutes left to the start. The hold-up was that people had not connected their bag drop tags (tear tags from the bib) to their bags. (I used a spare small zip tie to do this at home.) Shortly after I got in line, volunteers started bringing pins to people so they could attach their tags. Just after the announcer called four minutes to start, another volunteer came down the line accepting any bag that had a tag and taking it back to the check area, which allowed me to jump over to the corrals.

Start. This race is what I'd call medium-sized. There were no corrals, it was a group start, and runners self-seeded. There were pacers with signs to help self-seed. The start featured a recorded national anthem (there were some sound issues with that, but that's probably my biggest complaint about the whole race), an inflatable, and cheering volunteers.

Course. The course map was published pre-race for those who cared to look. The first part of the race went through various parts of downtown Oakland, largely avoiding the areas one might call "seedy" and featuring areas with the magnificent architecture in the heart of the city. We then ran down Piedmont, through the Piedmont area, up to the hilly part of Oakland (for the 2-3 serious hills) and back around towards the city center, looped around Lake Merritt, and back to Frank Ogawa Plaza for the finish. Course support was an aid station every 2 miles, with water and electrolytes. Around mile 8 there were also a variety of Honey Stinger gel products.

Running with a Police Escort. As I'm injured, I eventually fell to the very back of the pack. Just prior to the loop around Lake Merritt, and for a small portion coming off of that loop, we were diverted to the sidewalk--same course, same distance, just on the sidewalk instead of in the road. Around Lake Merritt we literally had our own police escort, a very nice officer on a motorcycle who checked on us multiple times and made sure we knew where the race course was going. He was encouraging, telling us to keep it up and we were doing great. Since the other caboose-runners and I were well behind the official course cut-off time (three hours), we thought we might get swept, but we didn't. I'm really happy about that, since there were just a few of us stragglers in back, and give the race mad props for letting us finish.

Finish line. We were announced crossing the finish line, and the announcer let everyone know the last runners were home. There were volunteers waiting to put medals on us, and medics on hand (I didn't need one, but one of the other cabooses was overheating and needed ice). The post-finish-line runner-stuff chute was almost entirely shut down at that point. We were able to get our mason jars (one of the finisher perks, also handy for drinking water and/or beer out of), there was a water station right there to fill them. While the Whole Foods food area was closed, I'm not complaining because (1) I finished about a half hour past the official finish time, and (2) I was still able to grab two entire boxes of Kind bars and some bananas.

Finish festival. Most of the same vendors were at the start/finish area as at the expo, though due to my late finish several of them had packed up already. I filled my mason jar with an electrolyte beverage at the Vega booth when I picked up my checked bag. Whole Foods gave me a reusable shopping tote. The beer garden, located in the shaded and paved area next to the grassy part of the plaza, was still in full swing. There were multiple food trucks with a range of food for purchase, plus some of the restaurants around the plaza were open. I opted for The Grilled Cheese Guy, and had the best grilled cheese I've had in years. (Oaklanders, you need to find him.)

Swag. Official runner swag included the race shirt (a tech shirt with a nice design), medal (palm-sized, cute design, some sparkle on Oakland, and a beer bottle opener on the back), mason jar (race and sponsor logos). As mentioned above, some vendors were also giving out swag.

Overall. It was a tough race for me because I didn't expect to be running injured (and I thought I had conquered this injury, but NOPE). I had a great time, and think the organizers did well with this one.

I didn't realize this was an inaugural race until after the race. It ran so smoothly, I was surprised! This is not Revel's first rodeo--they have other races--but was the first year at Mt. Charleston. Revel Races are all seriously net downhill, and touted as a great way to get a PR. More on that later.

Expo. I missed the expo because my flight was delayed. (Bummer, because I wanted to attend the #werunsocial meetup.) Revel allowed my friend to pick up my race packet for me. (I sent her a text with my ID and a message asking her to get my packet.) She reported the expo was small, which is not surprising for a first year race.

Swag. First, the shirts. At registration you got to choose a tank, short sleeve, or long sleeve. The shirts were gorgeous colors (an ombre teal/green and black) that were pretty but not girly. Second, the organization. When you got your bag at the expo, it was already tagged for use as a drop bag! I thought this was smart, since people forget to take the thing off of their bibs to tag their bags. Third, the other swag. Races on mountains are cold in the morning! Revel gave each runner a heat sheet, cotton gloves ("tosser gloves"), and a thermal/tech beanie that is so nice I'll wear it again. Bonus: it has a hole for your ponytail. Other items in the bag included cards about other Revel races and some product samples.

Parking/Race Day Transport. For this race, we parked at a large shopping center parking lot. There was plenty of parking, and we had no trouble finding a spot. From the lot, we walked to the corner where there were two sets of buses (one for the marathon, one for the half) waiting. These were not school buses but were the charter coach type of bus. Warmth! All of this ran very smoothly, and I did not hear a single complaint about parking, buses, or directions (rare for a race).

Staging/Race Start. The half marathon bus dropped off at an area that I assume is usually used as a parking lot, half way up the mountain. It didn't seem like there was that much elevation gain while driving up. The staging area had great views for selfies! There were a large number of porta potties, so lines were short, in addition to a water station, and gear drop truck. The race director was out there too, using a bullhorn for announcements and directing bus traffic. (I like to see the RD on the ground during events.) Eventually there was an announcement that it was time to head over to the starting line, a short walk in the downhill direction. I expected some formal start--announcements, national anthem, something--but people basically just started running when they got to the start. This surprised the other runners too. Since it kept the runners spaced out a bit--we all had to start our Garmins, etc.--it worked out quite well.

Course. The entire course was on the road. The road was not closed, but there were orange traffic cones spaced well enough to keep cars away from runners. The road is four lanes, and the cones were about in the middle of the right-side lane on the downhill side, so runners had half a lane plus the ample shoulder. As the runners were starting, there were clumps and passing took a tiny bit of planning, but all of the runners were super polite and followed the rules of the road. THAT was pretty awesome. Also awesome, a total lack of potholes and messed-up pavement. Save for the last few miles, the entire course was straight down the hill. The last few miles passed through a residential area and to the park next to the shopping center where we started.

Aid stations. The aid stations had water (and maybe electrolytes--I can't remember, and I was carrying my own). There were gels available at a couple of the aid stations. There were plenty of staffers, no one had to reach for their own water. One thing that was missing, the aid stations didn't have self-help first aid supplies. I'm used to seeing at least vaseline/anti-chafe and bandaids, and the race info said there would be basic first aid at the aid stations, but there was not. I developed a weird blister (probably since this was literally all downhill) and for the first time really wanted some anti-chafe, and there wasn't any. (That's my only real complaint here.)

Course scenery. The view was mountains, mountains, mountains until the last mile or two. Since it doesn't look like where I live, I felt like it was vacation scenery. There weren't many spectators on the course itself, but there were a ton at the finish line.

Finish line. Right before the finish line the marathoners started to catch up with the half runners. Despite my blister, I bolted to the finish line when I saw it. Shiny new PR! There were cheering sections at the finish, and they announced names as people crossed. Finish line free food for runners included the usual snacks, but also pizza and pie! The race ended in a park. Finish area included: race photo stations (did I mention the race photos are FREE to runners??), Revel gear booth, massage tent, a few other vendors, stage with live music. We got great weather, too!

Overall, I loved this race and yapped on and on about it to anyone who would listen for at least a week. It was so well-done that I'm looking at the other Revel series races. (That all-downhill-PR-maker course did NOT hurt my feelings at all.)

This event is both a nice shakeout for the half marathon/marathon/marathon-relay and a sweet little race in its own right.

Expo
Technically the expo wasn't open yet--but there was an expo associated with marathon weekend. Instead, runners picked up their bibs and shirts starting at 6:30 on race day. Since most runners either drove or stayed within a few blocks of the start, it was not a big deal. When I walked in there was no waiting, and plenty of boxes of safety pins (for attaching your bib).

Shirts/Swag
Tech shirts with a design specific to the 5k event (not "Buffalo Marathon weekend" but "John Beishline Memorial 5k") and NO sponsors ads on them. Since the races are over Memorial Day weekend, the colors are red, white, and blue for all the shirts, but each shirt has a different color as the main color (and the marathon and half marathon are long-sleeved). The 5k shirt this year was red, and I will wear it again. The 5k medal is a bronze bison with the race name and "Finisher" on it. The medal's ribbon is a half-as-wide version of the fat colorful ribbons currently popular with races right now.

Course/Scenery
The race started at 8:30 on an unusually warm day. Most of us were sweating within the first few steps! Everyone running the next day was glad the marathon races were set to start at 6:30. For those familiar with Buffalo, the course started on the Pearl Street side of the Convention Center, eventually crossed to Franklin Street, went to Barker St., and turned down Delaware, eventually cutting through Niagara Square and finishing on the Franklin Street side of the Convention Center. There were plenty of people out cheering, and a crowd of volunteers directing traffic and doing the usual race day things. The course runs by a bunch of the beautiful buildings in Buffalo, the kind that make you look at the architecture and think, "Wow, they do not build buildings like this anymore." The trees are lush and green, too!

There was very little elevation. Basically there was a low-grade up-hill on the way out, and a low-grade downhill on the way back. The course was suitable for even the most non-technical runner, and there were plenty of kids running as well (from high school ages all the way down to kids who I'd guess were first graders).

Parking near the convention center is plentiful.

Overall, this was a pretty sweet 5k. I'd love to see it double in size next year. It would be a great kick-off to a Memorial Day weekend trip even for non-runners.