Bay to Breakers 2005

What do you call a race when most participants are trying to delay the finish rather than expedite it? That's the Bay to Breakers, the world's largest and silliest footrace.

Sure, there are serious runners who come from far-away lands and win money and stuff. There are also semi-serious folks who actually register for the race, carbo load on spaghetti the night before, arise at 6 AM, carefully pin on their paper number bibs, make their way down to the starting line, run the majority of the race, make it to the finish line, go to Footstock, claim their t-shirts and later look up their race results online. But even most of them are kind of freaky. A lot of them are naked. Or dressed in something creative, or weird, or just plain hilarious. This is San Francisco after all.



The rest of us fall into what I will call the "unofficial" category. We don't register. We stay out the night before the race. We wake up late, forget to have breakfast and instead have a bloody mary. We join the race when it's already almost passed us by. We push grocery carts full of beer, build mobile DJ booths out of plywood and synthetic fur, ride on floats, do keg stands, stop and start countless times to collect friends, take pitsops behind trees or just to watch the crowd go by. We dance to techno in the street and don't finish the race because by the time we're nearing the finish line, the police brigade is doing the final sweep through and the race course has been diverted to cut off the last half mile of the eight-mile course.

Now, not all of these generalizations apply to me. I was in bed by 11 the night before, woke up on time, ate three pancakes and did not do any keg stands. I even hosted fifteen friends in my house before the race. Just before 10 AM, two hours and a few bloody marys later, we headed down to join the mob passing one block from my front door just in time to ascend the dreaded Hayes Street Hill. We lost each other and found each other and lost each other again. I rode on a mobile toilet throne, lost my feather tights, missed a golf shot for free beer but made it up later by biting some guy's nipple (understandably, the demanded exchange for a beer skyrockets near the end of the race) and somehow ended up strolling hand-in-hand with Metal Man.



Oh it was a good day. Don't even ask about the inspiration for my costume. No, as one passerby inquired, I did not lose a bet. But I did end up coming in very handy at the end of the day when the port-a-potty TP supplies were exhausted.

More mortifying photos available here.

Do you think I've just ruined any chance I ever had to run for public office?