If you’ve already broken all your New Year’s Resolutions, why not start the year over by celebrating the Chinese Lunar New Year (this year will be the year of the Tiger) with a good ol’ race? The Chinatown Firecracker 5k/10k is one of best local courses in Southern California – I kid you not… Imagine running over the hills of Elysian Park, parts of Downtown LA and a grand finish running the off the ramp of the 110 freeway – yup you get to run ON the freeway. I ran this race for the first time last year by myself and had the *best* time.

If you’re a relatively new Garmin Forerunner user or have yet to experience the full effect of Garmin Connect, this will blow your mind:
Say you’re tired of the same neighborhood you’ve been stomping for the past few weeks and are on the market for a new running route… Aside from some cool analytics features for pace, time splits, max/min speed and elevation change – you can also find cycling and running routes via other Garmin Connect users right off the site! If you live in a pretty populated city (Los Angeles for instance) you should be in for a treat.

How is it that no one ever remixed the “Home Alone” theme? It’s such a dope idea, and now Virtual Boy have beaten everyone to the punch! It’s a perfect fit for the California-based electronic duo, who meld orchestral sounds with state-of-the-art glitch funk that will melt your face in no time. There’s a sense of playfulness to the Virtual Boy sound–they’re playing with the listener’s expectations at all times on their ep How Do I Get To Space…

Whether you are training for a race, or trying to keep a certain level of fitness with your running, the number one concern for most people is finding the time to do it. If you’re like me and have little to no time during the day to do a medium to long tempo run or otherwise, you may have to join what I like the call “The Afterhours Crew” or night runners, if you want to get technical.

Once I check the LA Marathon off the list, I’ll be leaning towards more adventure racing and even more grueling tests of endurance, patience and my racing fund… the biggest and most exciting adventure race I have coming up is the Ragnar Relay Los Angeles. If you are not familiar with Ragnar Races, count your blessings… or thank me later for the exposure.

I’ve grown accustomed to off-roading when it comes to running, but with a recent move from West Los Angeles to the outskirts of Downtown Los Angeles, I’ve found myself at a loss of being able to haul myself over to the beach or the mountains to get some serious nature in… at least that’s what I thought till I found out about the LA River Bike Path.

Whatever happened to drum and bass? So many d&b stalwarts have started making dubstep, and DJ Zinc has lately been spinning straight 4/4 beats he calls “crack house.” Well, Camo UFOs is ridin’ in like the cavalry to make drum and bass fun again—heck, the crazy sounds they’re making actually sound more like d&b’s original name, “jungle.”

Today’s track of the day qualifies as Album of the Day as well, um yeah to me at least admittedly because i’ve found myself besotted with the artist Jesca Hoop ! (musically that is). The delightful ‘Whispering Light’ below off of the just released and already deservedly highly touted ‘Hunting My Dress’ album could easily make one believe that lady Jesca hails from the northern most parts of the British Isles and is deeply steeped in misty folklore and minstrel ways.

Aaron Rose has long been a force in bringing marginalized artists and creators into mainstream culture, like skate, music and film. From his work with RVCA and Nike to his Alleged gallery (RIP) and Beautiful Losers art show and documentary, Rose has been at the flashpoint of many amazing artists careers such as Phil Frost, Barry McGee, Ed Templeton and many more.

It’s not our intent to report sports scores on the regular, but after a 9 game winning streak the Lakers have lost to their hometown rivals. We have nothing against the Clippers, but being natives to the city we remember when they were from San Diego, and more importantly when they were terrible. This type of talk might piss a few folks off, but being LA-based, the Lakers have continued to dominate the landscape since the 80s.

Obama take note: music fans got a big bargain early when South Rakkas Crew released their album The Stimulus Package for free earlier today on Diplo’s awesome Mad Decent label (download it here). We’ve been fans of South Rakkas for a minute over here at Kspace, and the dynamic duo of Alex Greggs and Dennis “Dow Jones” Shaw have blown our minds again with Stimulus, proving that they are the new dons of electronic funk.

A blogging crew by the name of Notorias, has been quietly documenting their runs throughout the LA basin, both glorious and beautiful and some just downright urban. However, they manage to capture the type and scope of each journey, and share the video(!) from each of the vantage points on their runs.

yeah we know you’re feeling a bit stuffed after the Thanksgiving long weekend, but it’s also the best time to mark your calendar at 111 days to go to get in shape for the newly routed LA Marathon on March 21st, 2010. It’s not just for pros you know, and with all the combined LA city councils playing nice for the first time, there’s a dashing new ’stadium to sea’ route that will take you through a host of classic LA locations along the way – with iconic shoe and apparel brand K-Swiss as official sponsor committed to be with you each step of the way

Julian Casablancas has a lot to prove. The primary elephant in the room: can he make it without the Strokes? To that end, he’s set up a solo residency at downtown Los Angeles’ Palace Theater to properly introduce the world to his new solo album, Phrazes For The Young. That elephant can now leave the room: Casablanca delivered and then some – if the Strokes’ self-conscious lo-fi is scratchy black and white, then what Casablancas is doing now is glorious Technicolor, as KSPACE discovered catching last Friday’s show, the second of four shows in a month-long stand.

Walter Iooss and Neil Leifer are two of the most legendary sports photographers. Their work has become part of the cultural lexicon, as well as inspiration for new generations of photographers as well as athletes aspiring to be captured so artistically. Iooss is best known for his portraits of famous athletes like Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Brett Favre, Joe Montana and Wayne Gretzky. In his career, he has covered virtually every major sports event, including all 43 Super Bowls.

Palladium Boots has a cool series called “Uneven Terrain” that explores some of the man-made odd-modern landscapes, that are simultaneously strange yet interesting from an anthropological standpoint. The scars of the industrial revolution to be navigated by today’s explorers. Recently, they went in search of oil underneath Los Angeles, which is already pretty “meta” if you live here.

Classic Albums Revisited: DEVO And The Pixies Take Los Angeles Lightning struck twice this past week in Los Angeles, when two of rock’s most boundary-shattering bands performed an entire classic album from their career on two consecutive nights.

American Sports Data found that in 2002 there were 18.5 million skateboarders in the world, however the sports witnessed it’s first boom in the 1960s. Originally a “hobby” for off-season surfers, skateboarding got to the point of popularity as “sidewalk surfing” that ABC broadcast the international skateboard championships…

In what may be the understatement of the century, Thom Yorke proves to be a mysterious fellow. Just as suddenly as Radiohead dropped In Rainbows onto an unsuspecting Internet, he announced a series of impromptu solo shows (reviewed here) this week in Los Angeles for his album The Eraser – never mind the fact that that album came out three years ago: obviously, the routine promotional grind isn’t on the man’s mind.

David Byrne just isn’t one of the most influential musicians ever, from his landmark work with Talking Heads to his solo oeuvre to his exposure of unexpected musics from all over the globe via his Luaka Bop record label: he’s also an avid cyclist, too. What’s not surprising about that is that renaissance man Byrne uses his bicycle as yet another entrée into perceiving culture – in particular, as a vehicle, figurative and literal, to explore his fascination with the evolution of cities.