On the course map, Mile 10 of Saturday's Nike After Dark Tour sits at the front door of Mickey's Deli, 101 Hermosa Avenue. Runners reach Mile 11 at the 18th Street sidewalk, and Mile 12 on the Strand beside the tan brick restroom building just south of the Hermosa Beach Pier. After that, only one mile is left, and it runs back into Redondo Beach.
The race starts and finishes in Redondo, but Hermosa Beach gets its final stretch. That is why Saturday evening here plays out in course order. South Hermosa Avenue frees up first, the north end follows, and the Strand stays closed the longest because it is the last road between the runners and the finish line.
A Redondo race that finishes on Hermosa's streets
The Los Angeles stop of Nike's women's night race series is a 13.1-mile half marathon. It starts at 5 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, and the start/finish venue at 161 N. Harbor Drive opens at 2 p.m. and closes at 10:30 p.m., according to Nike's race page. Easy Reader reported that 12,000 runners registered and that the field sold out in 25 minutes. The route starts and ends next to Seaside Lagoon. Los Angeles is the last of seven host cities this year, after Shanghai, Sydney, London, Mexico City, Manila and Mumbai.
This is the first year the race has come to the coast. The same Easy Reader story notes that last year's U.S. race was held in Inglewood, and that this year organizers went looking for a coastline. The course spends its middle miles on Redondo's southern streets, with Riviera Village as the halfway point. Then it heads north into Hermosa for the miles where the field is most tired and the crowds are planned to be biggest.
The race footprint at King Harbor fills up before the starting gun, too. Expo days run Thursday and Friday, October 22 and 23, at Seaside Lagoon.
The path through town, mile by mile
The Hermosa Review's account of the City Council's approval lays out the Hermosa route. Matched against the mile markers on Nike's public course map, it looks like this:
- Runners enter Hermosa heading north on Hermosa Avenue from Herondo Street. Mile 10 is at Mickey's Deli.
- At 10th Street they turn west, then run north on Beach Drive past the Beach House Hotel.
- They rejoin Hermosa Avenue around 14th and 15th Streets and keep heading north, passing Mile 11 at 18th Street.
- At the north end of the loop, they cross to the Strand at 24th or 25th Street. The map and the April staff documents name different streets for this connector.
- They run south on the Strand, past the Pier at Mile 12, and back toward N. Harbor Drive and the Redondo finish.
Because of that loop, runners pass Pier Plaza twice near the end of the race: once going north on Hermosa Avenue and once coming south on the Strand. Nike called the plaza its "pinnacle cheer zone," according to the Hermosa Review. The city staff report names Pier Plaza as the main spectator area and estimates about 1,000 spectators. It also calls for pedestrian bridges at Pier Plaza and on the Strand to keep the plaza, the beach and the Pier reachable.
When each block should reopen
Nike's public course map lists every Hermosa closure as starting at 4 p.m. The end times step later as the course moves north and then out onto the sand side of town.
| Segment | Closure window on Nike's map |
|---|---|
| Hermosa Avenue, Herondo to 10th Street | 4 to 9:30 p.m. |
| 10th Street, Hermosa Avenue to Beach Drive | 4 to 9:30 p.m. |
| Beach Drive, 10th to 14th Street | 4 to 9:30 p.m. |
| 14th Street, Beach Drive to Hermosa Avenue | 4 to 9:30 p.m. |
| Hermosa Avenue, 14th to 24th Street | 4 to 9:45 p.m. |
| 24th Street, Hermosa Avenue to the Strand | 4 to 9:45 p.m. |
| The Strand, 24th Street to Harbor Drive | 4 to 10:15 p.m. |
| N. Harbor Drive, Marina Way to Herondo Street | 4 to 10:15 p.m. |
The timing follows from the race rules. The race window runs from 5 to 10 p.m. with a four-hour cutoff for finishers. The slowest runners will still be on the Strand after the lead pack has long finished in Redondo. Nike projected 12,000 runners, and the Hermosa Review reported that 43 percent of the 2025 field were first-time half marathoners. A field with that many first-timers will string out along the final miles, and the Strand carries the tail end.
The map's times aren't the only ones out there. The schedule in the April 14 city staff report starts most Hermosa closures at 4:45 p.m. and the Strand at 5:15 p.m., with most segments ending around 10 p.m. The city's October newsletter says only that streets along the route will be marked "No Parking - Tow Away Zones," and asks residents to follow the dates and times on the signs. On Saturday, the posted signs and the closure details on Nike's resident postcards are what count. Easy Reader reported that Nike sent two rounds of postcards and handed out 17,000 flyers in Redondo and Hermosa.
Who the loop actually closes in
Before the April vote, Nike presented a count of the race's effect on Hermosa homes. The Hermosa Review published the figures from staff report 26-PR-016:
- 579 homes directly on the race course
- 751 homes cut off by road closures, with no exit route while the course is closed
- 88 driveways and garages on the course
- 564 on-street parking spaces affected
The biggest single block of lost parking is Hermosa Avenue between Herondo and 10th Street, at 194 spaces. Hermosa Avenue from 14th to 22nd Street follows at 127. Those two stretches cover most of the commercial frontage on the avenue. Most of the cut-off homes sit in two pockets: 334 behind the southern stretch of Hermosa Avenue and 397 behind the stretch from 14th to 22nd. The loop wraps the blocks between the avenue and the beach, so a closed avenue on one side and a closed Strand on the other leave those streets without a way out for the evening.
At the April meeting, Nike proposed a free shuttle for cut-off residents. Residents would pre-register a need to leave or return during the closures, and Nike would hold parking in a nearby lot and drive them to and from it. The plan as presented also kept a pedestrian lane open on the east side of the Strand, and council members discussed staffed, intermittent crossings at walk streets. Those were the April plans. The city's October notice doesn't include a registration link, a crossing schedule or a resident hotline, and it points readers to the city's event page.
How the council got to yes
The approval took two meetings. The Hermosa Review reported that the council voted 5-0 on April 14, about a month after a split March 10 discussion. At that earlier meeting, members asked for better answers on resident displacement, the effect on businesses, and the size of Nike's financial contribution. Nike's revised package included a $50,000 community impact contribution. Nike also said it intended to book out the Beach House Hotel for race weekend, since Beach Drive runs right past it.
Redondo's numbers are much bigger. That city gets a $320,000 license fee, plus repayment of its extra police, fire and Public Works costs, Easy Reader reported. Redondo hosts the venue, the expo days and both the start and finish. Hermosa hosts the miles in between and the main cheer zone.
The rest of the week downtown
The race lands in the middle of an already crowded stretch for central Hermosa. Phase 3 of the Los Angeles County Sanitation District's sewer rehabilitation on Hermosa Avenue started the week of October 5 and is expected to run through mid-November, with work hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The contractor, Sancon Technologies, is lining the sewer main and restoring manholes. The posted sewer work day ends at 4 p.m., the same hour the race map's closures begin.
The north side of the Pier keeps hosting events on the weekends around the race. Beach Tennis Cali Club holds a tournament there on Sunday, October 25, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., the morning after the race. An AAU youth volleyball qualifier for national competition takes over the courts north of the Pier on Saturday, October 31, during the same hours.
On Saturday night itself, Nike's map has Hermosa Avenue south of 10th Street reopening at 9:30 p.m., the north end of the avenue at 9:45, and the Strand and N. Harbor Drive at 10:15.
Race night shows how much daily life in Hermosa Beach depends on which block you're on. A home on the walk streets west of Hermosa Avenue spends the evening of Saturday, October 24, very differently from one a few blocks east. That kind of block-by-block knowledge is a big part of how we advise clients at Liz Bird Fine Homes. If you'd like to talk through how your corner of town works, on race night or any other night, Let's Connect.