Running Clubs in Santa Monica

Local guide

Where Santa Monica Runs

The default Santa Monica run traces the Marvin Braude Coastal Path, the flat paved strand that stretches south from the pier toward Venice Beach and north along the beachfront.

It is why most group running concentrates near Ocean Avenue and the pier - you can step off a run and be at a café or bar on Main Street or Third Street Promenade within minutes. The marine layer keeps mornings cool even in summer, which is why Saturday dawn starts fill up fast.

For anyone who wants hills, the Santa Monica Stairs above Adelaide Drive offer steep climbing in a short distance, and San Vicente Boulevard gives runners a long, tree-lined corridor from Brentwood down to the ocean, connecting to the coastal path via Montana or California Avenue stairways.

Palisades Park, the linear bluff trail running along Ocean Avenue, is gentler - shaded, rolling, with unobstructed Pacific views. It is the kind of route that makes a ten-miler feel shorter than it is.

The climate means running here is genuinely year-round. Marine-layer mornings keep the worst of the heat off the coastal miles, and winter rain systems are infrequent enough that they rarely cancel a long run. The LA Marathon finishes on Ocean Avenue near the pier, which means a serious chunk of the running population here is building toward that course at any given point in the training calendar.