The Los Angeles Marathon covers more distinct terrain, culturally and physically, than almost any other major American marathon. It's a point-to-point course that starts at Dodger Stadium and finishes in Century City, and in between it runs through the kind of neighborhood variety that usually takes a car, not a pair of running shoes, to see in one day. Here's how the route actually unfolds, section by section.

Dodger Stadium to Downtown LA

The race starts inside the Dodger Stadium lot in Elysian Park, at the highest point on the course, and drops quickly through Chinatown before threading into the historic core of Downtown Los Angeles. Runners pass near City Hall, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in these opening miles — dense, architecturally packed blocks that also happen to be some of the fastest, most net-downhill running of the day. It's a deceptively easy start: the drop out of Chavez Ravine can make goal pace feel far too comfortable, which is exactly the trap experienced LA runners warn about most.

Echo Park and Silver Lake

After downtown, the course turns northwest through Echo Park, past the lake, and into Silver Lake — leafy, hilly, residential neighborhoods that mark the start of the course's real climbing. This stretch rolls more than it did at the start, with punchy ups and downs that reward even effort over a fixed pace. It's quieter than the blocks before or after it, which makes it a useful gut check on whether an early pace was genuinely sustainable or just adrenaline.

Hollywood and the Sunset Strip

By roughly the midpoint of the first half, the course reaches Hollywood Boulevard, running past the Walk of Fame, Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and the Pantages Theatre — one of the most heavily spectated stretches on the entire route, and a real crowd lift after the Silver Lake rollers. From there the route turns onto Sunset Boulevard and continues through the Sunset Strip into West Hollywood, a livelier, more nightlife-driven few miles than the historic core the race started in.

Beverly Hills and the halfway point

The course crosses the halfway mark somewhere in or around West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where the route runs past Beverly Hills City Hall and along the storefronts of Rodeo Drive. This section also contains the single most significant downhill on the course, and it's worth banking cautiously rather than spending freely — the quads that carry you through this descent are the same ones you'll need for the closing miles.

Westwood, Brentwood, and the double-back

Past Beverly Hills, the course pushes west through Westwood, near UCLA, and into the upscale, more residential neighborhood of Brentwood along San Vicente Boulevard. This is where the old course used to keep heading toward the ocean; the current route instead makes a turnaround, sometimes called the 'double-back,' and heads east again toward Century City. It's the least crowd-lined, most exposed stretch of the race, and the one where a warm day tends to do the most damage — worth treating as a genuine tactical section rather than a formality.

The finish in Century City

The final miles bring runners back through Century City to the finish line on Avenue of the Stars at Santa Monica Boulevard, inside a finish festival that has become the race's answer to the beachfront celebration it left behind. Despite the general downhill trend of the closing miles, there's a short climb built into the very end, so the race saves one last request for tired legs before the finish chute.

This guide focuses on how the route feels and what it passes through; the race's own data card on this page has the verified elevation, distance, and course-type specifics worth checking before you commit to a goal pace.