Personally I think the commute from Pasadena to Long Beach would suck. I'd look at the South Bay or northwest Orange County to keep the commute reasonable. In the south bay (where I ride a lot) you can do intervals along the beach trail during the week (or early morning on weekends.) The vertical climb up Palos Verdes isn't that high (about 750ft according to Strava) but you can do a few hill repeats to get that up. Palso Verdes is pretty big and offers many different routes to climb the same hill. You could always go north to climb the Santa Monica mountains too.