L.A. Marathon was a downer for some

It wasn't just the website crash and registration glitches. Tina Dupuy at Fishbowl L.A. says the runners she has heard from had tons of horror stories about pre-race traffic, the course and the experience for runners after they finished the race. Especially the traffic.

One woman, who dropped off a friend at Dodger Stadium at 5:45 am on Sunday, was stuck in total gridlock trying to leave the sports arena. There was no one directing exiting traffic and, due to road closures from the course, the cars were spit out downtown as far as 6th Street. Our source saw a woman abandon her car to go out on foot to wave down a police officer to inquire as to what to do. "It was like Calcutta," said the witness. People were driving the wrong way on streets and driving on the sidewalks, just trying to figure out a way out. She tells us she didn't get out of the downtown quagmire until after 6:45, an hour after dropping off her runner.

And that was just the starting line. There was no arrangement for cars after they dropped off runners at the stadium. In previous years the start line was also a Metro stop, giving people options in transportation. This year it was suggested to buy a parking space in Santa Monica and take a chartered shuttle to Elysian Park. The shuttle service started at 3am. The race at 7:23. Of course the parking garages didn't allow for overnight parking, so it was between parking at midnight or the middle of the night. This was very frustrating to the runners we talked to....

Perhaps because it is so inspiring to see 25,000 people run a long race across four cities, combined with shrunken news holes, smaller staff and fewer local publications, the reporting on the snafus has been nonexistent. Since there were no runners who died, the narrative has been about the personal stories of triumph and not the failings of the organizers. The organizers, some of whom are marathon runners themselves, just dropped the ball.

The photo with her post is, needless to say, not of L.A.