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Sports

Best Running Trails in Hermosa

The diverse terrain in this beach town provides a jogger's paradise, experts say.

Hermosa Beach is known for its surf and sand, and those features make it an  ideal place to take a jog, local runners say. With the Strand, the sand and Hermosa Valley Greenbelt, runners have a wide array of routes to choose from.

"You can have straight flat roads down at the beach, or you can have hills...it's good to train [here because] there's a little bit of everything, " said David Cardona, the state's champion in the 5,000 meters and a competitor at Torrance's El Camino Community College.

The Strand, a 22-mile running and cycling path made of concrete pavement, extends along the Hermosa Beach shoreline. The trail is a popular route for not only runners, but also skateboarders and cyclists.

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"Most people start out on the bike path in the Hermosa area. It's generally a little crowded sometimes, but there's good air out there and good scenery," said Ray Miyamoto, a runner from Carson who often passes through Hermosa Beach.

Police are stationed at the Strand to ensure that the area doesn't become too crowded, said Donna Hunter of the Hermosa Beach Community Resources Department.

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"Police monitor bicycle traffic and ticket anyone that's going too fast," she said, adding that a city contractor performs regular maintenance to keep the trail sand-free.

But even sand free the Strand's hard surface can do more harm than good, according to Bill Consolo, who works at the Village Runner stores in Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach.

Running on the unvaried hard surface applies force and stress to the same joints in the body with every strike of the foot, Consolo explained.

"There are so many other places [to run]," he said. "I run on a grass field."

Many South Bay high schools have all-weather tracks, which provide more cushion than a concrete sidewalk, and the Hermosa Valley Greenbelt trail offers a soft wood chip surface.

"Those [runners] who are recreational and don't want to run on hard cement" would benefit most from the wood chip trail, Cardona said. 

Extending about 3.7 miles, the Hermosa Valley Greenbelt starts in Redondo Beach and ends in Manhattan Beach, providing a steady run. The trail also includes mile markers so runners can monitor distance traveled.

"There's not as many hills," said Shayla Gonsalez, who traveled from Torrance to run the trail. "If you go towards Manhattan Beach there's bigger hills than here in Hermosa Beach."

When she wants a more challenging route, Gonsalez runs up and down Pier Avenue. The avenue sits on a hill that dead-ends at Pier Plaza. Near the plaza, Pier Avenue connects to the Strand, and just west of the Hermosa Beach skateboard park, the avenue connects with the Hermosa Valley Greenbelt.

Despite the convenience of these trails and connecting routes across town, the best surface to run on is sand, said personal trainer G.I. Joe Charles, who hosts boot camp exercise sessions at the Hermosa Beach Pier.

"I start having [clients] run from one lifeguard station to another," he said.

Charles advises runners to escalate the number of lifeguard towers they run over a course of weeks. By the end of the session, one jog should include more than 12 lifeguard towers.

"Conditioning, overcoming negative energy, and relaxing the mind, body and soul" is the goal of a run, Charles said.

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