As Coachella's 10th Run With Los Muertos nears, a look at how it all started

Run With Los Muertos, the annual 5K race and block party that happens in downtown Coachella, is in its 10th year. The Day of the Dead-inspired event features a traditional procession and altars to honor the dead, several stages with live music, a car show and vendors selling art, clothing and food. But it wasn't always that way.

While runners and other attendees alike can expect all of those fun activities to return starting at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Tizoc DeAztlan, race director, recently reflected on how Run With Los Muertos has grown in the past decade.

"Looking back, we threw it together, right?" he recalled. "But it was like, we didn't know what was gonna happen. We had a little stage that was in front of city hall (and) the beer garden was in an alleyway that is now where the library is. So, that's really cool, to look at the evolution of the event and kind of how it coincides with Sixth Street, in general."

The new Coachella Library, which is on Sixth Street across from city hall, opened in 2018.

DeAztlan was born in Palm Springs and grew up the eastern Coachella Valley. Along with his wife, Briana DeAztlan, and Coachella nonprofit Raices Cultura, he started the race with the goal to create a community event that engages east valley locals in health and fitness.

DeAztlan is a runner himself and said there used to be running events in the east valley way before Run With Los Muertos. When these disappeared, he and other east valley runners had to go to Palm Desert or Palm Springs to participate in races, so he wanted to offer one closer to home.

Some initial questions ahead of establishing Run With Los Muertos, he recalls, were: "How do we make this fun? How do we make this (an event) where people will want to run? How do we create an interest level beyond just runners?"

DeAztlan found the answer in merging the 5K with the Day of the Dead holiday, which Raices Cultura had been helping Coachella residents celebrate for many years already.

"Raices would do a procession, walking to the church ... If you look at the (Day of the Dead) throughout Mexico, the procession is something that is prevalent in every single event. We wanted to incorporate that," DeAztlan said.

Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a sacred holiday that happens within the span of several days at the end of October and through Nov. 2, most notably in Mexico. Other Latin American countries also have similar holidays and rituals to remember the dead and honor their past lives.

Because runners are encouraged to dedicate their 5K to a deceased loved one, “Who will you run for?" became the tagline for the event, and many run with the name of their person on race bibs, t-shirts, or fun and colorful accessories.

DeAztlan noted that having children participate was also a priority, which is why the Run With Los Muertos team thought to add a free block party component and invite student organizations to perform during.

"Certainly, it's morphed into so many other things over the years ... We've done free health classes, workouts, lectures, we've had artists come from Oaxaca to speak, to show their art," DeAztlan said. "One year, through our artist connections in Oaxaca, we took a delegation that included Mayor (Steven) Hernandez and Supervisor (V. Manuel) Perez down to Oaxaca to meet with leaders there and that turned into a (Riverside) County-Oaxaca partnership. So, going from a 5K to, now you're doing international exchanges and stuff, that (shows) there's no limit when you're trying to expand and be inclusive."

Though the holiday is celebrated throughout Mexico, the city of Oaxaca is considered the epicenter of Day of the Dead celebrations. In the Coachella Valley, several cities have their own events to commemorate the day as well.

At Run With Los Muertos, attendance is free for the car show and block party, which begin at 4 p.m., but there is a fee to run or walk in the 5K, which starts at 6 p.m.

‘Woo, let's do it!’

To learn more about the event's history — and its future — The Desert Sun interviewed DeAztlan. A transcript of that conversation is featured below and has been edited for length and clarity.

Could you elaborate on some of the standout changes from the early years of Run With Los Muertos to present day? "The first year was a stage, beer garden and artwork. And I just remember things being kind of dark. That just comes with lack of resources. I do remember we were rushing last minute to Home Depot to buy construction lights and stuff like that ... The following years, we felt ready, like 'Woo, let's do it! Let's have a second stage.' And now we have three stages with live bands and DJs on all of them and judges for the procession ... This (year) is going to be our third time with the car show. There's usually like 1,000 to 1,500 people just at the car show and some people don't know that, because they're at the block party."

How many runners attended the first year and has that number grown? "I want to say there were 200-something (runners) the first year and a total audience of maybe 1,500 people. We had pretty much leveled out in the 500 range for runners pre-pandemic (and) we had maybe 6,000 to 7,000 people showing up (to watch). Last year, I think the number was 645 runners and the total attendance was back to pre-pandemic (numbers)."

Did you ever imagine the event would grow this way? Did you think it would make it to 10 years? "It was always, 'OK, are we doing this again?' Because this is something that we do as a passion, as wanting to do this for the community, and it's come at a lot of financial costs, a lot of time, a lot of things. From year to year, the financial ability changes and your time availability changes, but you're balancing that with now the community expects this, so it's also not like we can say, 'We'll just take the year off.' ... As it's grown, we've grown past that 'Are we doing it next year?' to 'How are we going to do it next year?' ... At the end of the day, we always knew that it could grow to this, we just didn't know how or when. And I don't think that it's reached its peak. Maybe year 20, we're talking about (it being) a two or three-day festival."

What can people expect at Run With Los Muertos this year? "When the community comes out on Nov. 4, they can expect to be part of a fun, authentic and uplifting Day of the Dead celebration. We'll have the largest and most diverse lineup of entertainers we've ever had. Raices has assembled a deep and talented group of artists that will have their work on display. It's the 10th anniversary of a storied tradition. It's gonna be a special night."

Eliana Perez covers the eastern Coachella Valley, including the cities of Indio and Coachella. Reach her at [email protected] or on Twitter @ElianaPress.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Ten years in, a look at how Coachella's Run With Los Muertos started