Nike After Dark Tour LA, 12,000 Women Ran Until They Saw the Stars

On Saturday, October 24, Nike closed the roads of the South Bay so 12,000 women could race 13.1 miles into the night. The Nike After Dark Tour came back to Los Angeles for its second year, starting at King Harbor in Redondo Beach at 5 PM, running through Torrance and Hermosa Beach as the sun went down, and finishing back at the harbor in the dark. By the end of the night, drones were writing over the water. This is the whole night, told by the clock.

Fourteen Weeks of Track Nights

Race night was the end of something that started months earlier. For 14 weeks, Nike gathered runners from across Los Angeles for weekly Track Nights at Crenshaw High School, with training and coaching from Nike LA Run Coaches. Nike LA's six sponsored run crews hosted community training runs alongside them, and race week ran through the Expotique at 200 Portofino Way.

The After Dark Tour is a global race series built for women and powered by Nike. In 2026 it runs through seven cities, from a 10K in Shanghai in April to a 10K in Mumbai in December, with distances from 10Ks to half marathons. Every stop has the same goal, to welcome more women to the starting line. Los Angeles was the only stop in the United States.

5:00 PM, 12,000 at the Start

Roads closed at 4 PM. At 5 PM the field went off from King Harbor in six corrals, A through F, with pace groups from seven to 15 minutes a mile and four hours to finish. Nike athletes Anna Cockrell, Masai Russell and Tara Davis-Woodhall led the kickoff.

Many of the 12,000 raced in the After Dark Tour collection, which ran across Nike's road running and racing shoes and its Aero-FIT Radical Airflow apparel, in Hyper Pink with reflective details. A Hyper Pink Alphafly 4 went on sale at select Los Angeles stores before the shoe's wider national release, so local runners could race in it first.

6:10 PM, Sundown on the Course

The course ran from Redondo Beach through Torrance and Hermosa Beach and back, 13.1 miles with 460 feet of climbing and a high point of 241 feet. The sun set over the Pacific at 6:10, so for most of the field the second half was run after dark.

Five cheer zones lined the route, from Veterans Park at miles 1 and 8.25 to the Pier Plaza Takeover in Hermosa Beach at miles 10.5 and 12, with Riviera Village and The Hill in between. The signs came out too. One read Baddies Run After Dark.

1:13:29, the First Across the Line

Jenny Schilling, a Nike employee based in Oregon, broke the tape in 1:13:29 wearing the Vaporfly 4. Insa Mannstadt, an active part of the New York running community, was second in 1:14:42. Olympian Marielle Hall, general manager of Heartbreak Hill Running Company in Los Angeles, was third in 1:15:14. Mannstadt and Hall both raced in the new Alphafly 4.

Schilling's winning time works out to about 5:36 a mile over 13.1 miles of rolling beach roads. Keira D'Amato, a record breaking Nike athlete, finished fourth. With a 5 PM start, the leaders came home right around sundown, while the rest of the field was still out on the road.

You Didn't Have To

Behind the leaders came everyone else, and the course stayed open for four hours, which gave the last runners until 9 PM to reach the harbor. Final shuttles left at 10:30 and the venue closed at 10:45. Creator Quenlin Blackwell ran her first half marathon, joined by Joan Benoit Samuelson, a Nike legend and a pioneer of women's distance running. Five time marathoner Karen Robles was out there, along with Upstairs Neighbors podcast hosts Dom Roberts and Maya Umemoto-Gorman and viral running sensation Justine Huang.

Every finisher got the 2026 race medal, designed by an all women innovation team to be worn as a necklace, a bracelet, a keychain loop or a belt chain, with a carabiner made for Los Angeles. It is meant to be worn long after race night, styled however each runner wants.

Written in the Sky

The night ended back at King Harbor with an after party headlined by Baby J. Above it, a drone show lit the sky in the race's red, writing After Dark Tour 2026 over the water, then a swoosh with RUN above it, then lines for the women below. One read You didn't have to, but you did. Another read Run until you see the stars.

By the time the drones went up, every runner on the course had done exactly that. It was the second Nike night in Los Angeles we covered this month, after Masyn's Air Works night. The tour moves on to the Manila 10K on November 21 and the Mumbai 10K on December 12.