Hi,
I’ll be in Los Angeles for a business trip this weekend, but will have enough time to do my scheduled 20 mile long run. I’ll be staying in Downtown, but will have a car, so I’m willing to travel a bit if needed. Do any of you have any good suggestions as to where to run, or at least, areas that would be best to avoid (both from a personal safety and traffic perspective- I don’t know LA all that well)?
Thanks!!!
definitely don’t do your run downtown if you want to do 20 miles.
I do my long runs in Topanga State park about a half hour to 45 minutes north on PCH. also worth just driving up to see
Most of the beaches on the coast have great running trails. Huntington Beach is a good one, about 30-45 min from downtown LA. Park near the pier and you have about 10 miles north and south of the pier of running trails.
i would check out the Hollywood hills by the HOLLYWOOD sign or Griffith Park. I’ve gone horseback riding on the trails and always wanted to run/walk the trails there. If you search it, I know there are lots and lots of miles on wide dirt trails.
i would check out the Hollywood hills by the HOLLYWOOD sign or Griffith Park. I’ve gone horseback riding on the trails and always wanted to run/walk the trails there. If you search it, I know there are lots and lots of miles on wide dirt trails.
Great suggestion. You can run laps around the Rose Bowl too.
I have been to Chino Hills State park and Bonelli park in San Dimas for long runs during different vacations. Both places were ok. San Dimas and Chino Hills are both driving distance from down town(abt 40 Minutes).
That being said, I would be very interested to see how people survive long runs in LA. Every time I go out there this is the workout that I struggle to find a place to complete it.
The options are ENDLESS…
- Griffith Park
- Backbone Trail / Any Trailheads in the Santa Monica Range
- Palos Verdes Trails: Park in Malaga Cove, find a trail head(there are a ton) and just run (over 120 miles of trails)
- Go down to the Southbay; park in Hermosa and run north to Playa del Rey and back along the beach on the strand. Do it early or there will be tons of people.
If you want better details, PM me.
Flat? Hilly? Bit of both?
If flat, best bets are (1) drive west on the 10, north on PCH for about 3 miles, park at Temescal Canyon, run on the bike path path heading south (actually more east), through Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, or (2) drive 110 south to Pacific Coast Highway exit, head west about 5 miles and park at South Torrance beach (just gmap paseo de la playa, large parking lot there), run north on the path thru Redondo, Hermosa, Manhattan, Playa. Flat as a board. Interesting bit thru Venice. Lots of concrete though. Both trips on the weekend should be about 20-30 minutes. Won’t be crowded this weekend, rain on Sat. It’s never that crowded anyawy unless it’s high summer, and then there’s a lot of bikinis to keep your mind occupied
If you want a mix, you can park in South Torrance, run a bit of flat, or run up Paseo de la Playa and hit the drives. Palos Verdes Drive south, west, south, east and north, is about a 22 mile loop. All roads, but there are trails you can branch off on…Just don’t get lost
I’ve never run the topango/griffith, etc other options
If you want trails, 15 min up the road is Pasadena & you can run from the Rose Bowl into the San Gabriels past JPL–up El Prieto if you wish–to the top of Brown or over & up Chantry—really easy to string together 20+ mile runs here. Or park near Altadena & run up the Mt Wilson road—about a 3 mile climb to Henninger (water avail here) & you can run all the way to Mt. Wilson if you want (7500+ feet gain), about 18 miles RT from the bridge. Good dirt road/condition & about 3-4% grade for most of it after the first mile or two. Water is avail at Henninger. Or drive to Monrovia Canyon & run up the Canyon trail to White Saddle (about 4-5 miles, 2-3% grade) and then you have about 100 miles of forest trails/roads to choose from. OR drive about 45-50 min over to Thousand Oaks area & run in the Santa Monicas—there is a great trail that runs from the 101 all the way to the beach & back—mostly flat/rolling, with a good climb up & over the mts near the coast. 10 min on Google & you should be able to find it. LOTS of options in the area, however the trail conditions up there tend to be really bad in the rain, and its going to pour in LA this weekend.
Yeah, as others have said, you might want to indicate what you are looking for (flat, hills, trails, track, etc.).
Thank you everyone for all of your suggestions- there were a lot of great ideas in your posts!
For my long run, I wound up starting in Redondo Beach and running up into Palos Verdes and back, into Hermosa Beach on the return. Hilly, but Palos Verdes was a beautiful place to run. I also got a chance to run in Griffith Park, up to the top of Mt. Hollywood on the trails on Saturday, after the rain- most challenging run I’ve ever done (and I thought I had a good amount of hilly trail running experience!), but on that day especially, the views of everything were awesome- I could see all the way to Catalina Island. To finish off my weekend, I did an easy run on Sunday on the Strand in Manhattan Beach- the only somewhat typical SoCal weather day of the weekend. I had never thought of LA as being a great place to run- the weekend changed my view of that 
Cool, glad to hear you got to see several different environments, and had pretty good weather (if a bit cold) to boot
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