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.