The Los Angeles Times Profiles the Great Los Angeles Walk!

Thanks to the Los Angeles Times and writer Deborah Vankin for this wonderful profile of me and the Great Los Angeles Walk, which ran on Friday as part of the newspaper's week-long series of articles about walking in L.A.

I spent time with Deborah a few weeks ago to talk about the Walk, why I started it and continue to do it -- for love of community, of course. And this year in particular, after the terrible week many of us just experienced, I think it will be more important than ever (and perhaps healing and therapeutic) for us to all get together on November 23.

I loved Deborah's flourishes in the story, and my family and friends are also getting a kick over some of the descriptions. But she accurately captured my passions about, yes, walking in L.A., but also the city itself, my love of course of TV and other things.

In ’99, he landed a job as a reporter at Variety and met his wife, Maria. He wasn’t much of an exerciser, but she liked to walk. Their early dates were spent exploring the city on foot, including taking Los Angeles Conservancy walking tours downtown and hiking in Griffith Park. Schneider fell in love with L.A. history and found that walking its concrete stretches helped him feel more rooted in the city.

“When I first came to L.A., I was like: Where is the core?” he says. “I didn’t understand why people didn’t know where to congregate. Now I get it. It’s all these different cores.”

Schneider also has collected handfuls of odd, serendipitous moments from the Great Walk. The event has passed weddings in progress, film crews shooting, even buildings on fire. Once, in 2009, the group streamed past the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center on Washington Boulevard and Magic Johnson appeared in the window to cheer them on. Two years earlier, on Pico Boulevard, a crane holding a billboard toppled over and chaos ensued.

“Traffic stopped, police were everywhere, no one could get through,” Schneider recalls. “But here we were, just walking on by.”

Schneider doesn’t make any money off of the Great Walk; it’s free to participants and he doesn’t pay to advertise the event. In recent years, there have been sponsors, including The Times, who might give him free ads, say, or pass out water in exchange for a mention on the blog.

“But there’s no business model,” Schneider says. “We’re not an official organization. This is just a grassroots group of people getting together to walk.”

Nineteen years of crisscrossing L.A. on foot has given Schneider a rare, bird’s-eye-view of the city, from a boots-on-the-ground perspective.

Thanks to the Los Angeles Times, we'll be passing out copies of their "Walk On, LA!" special section at the start of this year's event!

Read more here.

The Great LA Walk In The News: NBC4 and Los Angeles Times Recommend

The Los Angeles Times and KNBC-Channel 4 have been great in sharing word about the Great Los Angeles Walk over the years, and thanks to them the word continues to get out about the event!

As Alysia Gray Painter writes in her piece for NBCLosAngeles.com:

Count 'em up: How many shops or eateries or libraries or civic offices or churches or plazas have you zipped by, in a car or in a bus or on a bicycle, vowing to return later, on foot, to see just what that building was all about?

Do you go back? And poke your head into all of the head-poke-able places, to get to know our massive-o-polis of a city even better?

If so, high fives. If not, high fives, because you have the impulse, and, yes, a way-busy schedule.

But there's a Saturday to-do just ahead, that's totally free to join, and it is all about making good on your whole desire to track-back and check out some of the local sights you've seen through your windshield.

And, yes: To pay affectionate and grateful homage to iconic food writer Jonathan Gold, who passed away earlier this year.

That Saturday is Nov. 17, the event is the 13th annual Great Los Angeles Walk, and, once again, a group of local-loving Southern Californians will set off on a long stroll from DTLA to the Pacific Ocean.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times lists this year's Walk in its roundup of events happening this weekend:

Who says nobody walks in L.A.? The 13th Great Los Angeles Walk is a 16-mile stroll through the city from Pershing Square to Santa Monica. This year’s route goes through Koreatown in honor of Jonathan Gold, the late L.A. Times food critic who loved the neighborhood’s food. Organizers suggest going slowly to take in the sights and the crowd; many new friendships and at least one wedding have come out of the walk.

Great LA Walk Promo in Today's Los Angeles Times!

Thanks to our media marketing partner, the Los Angeles Times, for helping get the word out about this year's GREAT LOS ANGELES WALK!

Have some questions? Email us at greatlawalk@mail.com, or visit our FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS post.

And see you on Saturday!

L.A. Times: The Great Los Angeles Walk is a "Health Happening"

Thanks to the Los Angeles Times, which is also a marketing partner of this year's walk, for this writeup in their "Health Happenings" column! Kavita Daswani writes:

Pencil in Nov. 19 for the 11th pre-Thanksgiving Great Los Angeles Walk. Some 400 people are expected to participate in the low-key, no pressure trek from downtown to the beach, traversing 16 miles along Pico Avenue. Organizer Mike Schneider says that the walk can be "as long or as short" as people want, although with breaks, the exercise usually takes about eight hours. Walkers can opt out at any time. The walk is returning to Pico Avenue for the first time since 2007. The new Metro Expo Line runs between the start and end points.

More news on Monday as we announce the start point of this year's walk!

See Our Promo in the Los Angeles Times!

Thanks to our friends at media partner Los Angeles Times, check out the ad in today's paper for Saturday's big Walk!