Notes
For this year's Bay to Breakers, I went with a repeat of last year's outfit, a silver-sequined G-string. I had a blast last year, so why mess with success?
This year things were a little different, but I still had a blast. For starters, last year Meb Keflezhighi ran it; I went up to him and wished him luck at the London Olympic Marathon. (He took 4th.) This year Ryan Hall was there. But this year the elites were segregated from the rest of us mere seeded starters, boo. He didn't line up until just before the gun went off, and I was a few rows back, so no chance to wish him luck at anything.
Also last year, Scott Dunlap was there in the seeded corral taking photos for his blog, in which I featured prominently. And a group of seeded women had to pose for several pics with me. Neither happened this year. Ah well! So much for vanity and trying to recreate past fun times. On the plus side, a grinning woman behind me told me she'd try her best to stay right behind me.
Again, in the first mile, I found myself running alongside a women's centipede. This year they did not leave me in the dust quite so quickly. I overheard something like "nice view...", then, from one of their "handlers" (guys running alongside to keep them coordinated and on pace), "well maybe for you, not so much for me". Heh. But finally they pulled away, on Hayes St. Hill.
I was hoping to beat last year's time of 48:57... I think I'm in a bit better shape this year. There again, nope. The first couple miles were OK, but the hill sucked the life out of me; I couldn't hold on after cresting it. I was struggling to run about marathon pace for the middle miles. At least I was able to kick hard at the end to still come in barely under 50:00. Like last year, I was the first bare-assed finisher. This year I had some competition; he finished a minute or so behind me. I don't know whether it was the hamstring (a bit of an issue), or that this was my sixth consecutive week racing, or just that I'm a year older. Have to try harder next year. But it's such a party atmosphere, it's hard be in the right mindset to run in the pain zone the whole way.
One way in which this year was clearly better is that I decided to run the course in reverse after finishing, to see all the other costumes. That was a lot of fun. And I got a lot of (mostly) positive comments. Once someone ran up from behind and sprayed me with silly string. Lots and lots of very large, very loud partying going on, mostly along Hayes St. I figured running backwards, I'd run out of participants around mile 3 or so... nope. There were still crowds of people moseying along in the *first mile*, after I'd run the whole race forwards, 10-15 minute break, and backwards! WTF.
Pics:
http://m.flickr.com/#/photos/31324541@N07/8755630934/sizes/m/
more when I make the effort to track them down