Saturday, October 24, noon to midnight · Hollywood Forever, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd
Marigolds, candlelight and music drifting between the palms. On Saturday, October 24, Hollywood Forever opens its gates at noon for Día de los Muertos, and it doesn't close them until midnight.
This is the 27th year, and the theme is All Under One Sky, Bajo Un Mismo Cielo. Ofrendas fill the grounds, built to honor the people who came before, and between them there is dance, art and food.
As the light goes, the stages take over: DannyLux, Trish Toledo, Tropa Magica and Los Shadows.
It happens rain or shine, and everyone five and up needs a ticket.
The Zoo after dark, glowing. Butterflies made of light, marine creatures, and Ice Age giants rising out of Griffith Park.
L.A. Zoo Lights returns on select evenings from November 20 to January 10, with all-new light sculptures of birds, butterflies, marine creatures and Ice Age giants.
Give it 60 to 90 minutes. Ride the carousel, take a turn on the ice rink (ticketed separately) and walk out warm. The Zoo is closed on some nights, including Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, so check the calendar before you go.
Polished paint under bright lights, and nearly two dozen brands under one roof. The Los Angeles Auto Show takes over the Convention Center for ten days.
It runs from November 20 to 29, and it is open on Thanksgiving Day too.
Head for the South Hall entrance at Pico Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Pico Station is one block away, so you can leave the car at home.
Chalk, iron and 60 years of sweat, a few blocks from the beach. Gold's Gym Venice is still The Mecca of Bodybuilding.
Joe Gold opened the first Gold's Gym here in 1965. It marked its 60th anniversary in August 2025.
When the other Southern California Gold's Gyms became EōS Fitness in 2025, Venice kept its own owners and its own name. It is the last Gold's in the Los Angeles area, and walking in still feels like history.
It's 6 am in LA and the light is still soft on the street. Zay has the plan written before you've laced up.
Photograph: builtbyzaywashington.com
That is where it always starts with him. Your goal goes down on paper first, then the weeks it will take to reach it, then today. No guessing, and no going hard every day just to feel busy. You walk in already knowing why you are here.
The warm-up is not a formality. Lunges with a reach, high knees, side shuffles: your whole body wakes up at once, and your head arrives with it. Nothing heavy moves until you are present, because a workout without your mind in it does not count.
Then the work. A med ball leaves your hands and hits the floor, and you feel the power rise from your hips. The big lifts follow in supersets, a press and then a row with barely a breath between them, so your heart stays up and nothing is wasted.
Near the end comes the air bike, or the ski-row, short and honest. Your lungs burn, your legs argue, and the last interval is the one you remember on the drive home.
Through all of it, your core is trained the whole way around: front, back and sides. Not for a six-pack. For the posture that carries you for decades.
The week has a shape. Four main sessions, an optional fifth when you have it in you, and rest days that are part of the plan, not a reward for surviving it. Push too hard too fast and the body and the mind both give out. Zay builds the weeks so neither does.
It is the framework he built with NFL and Division 1 football players, made for anyone who wants to train like an athlete and move like one. You leave lighter, stronger and a little more sure of yourself than when you came in.
It's fire, and as inspiring as he is.
Available at TrainHeroic, or by asking Theins for a training program.
Dates and details are from each organizer’s own page, and trainer advice is quoted from the trainer’s own interviews and site. Check with them before you go.
