Bay to Breakers – A Little Bit Race, A Little Bit Mardi Gras
June 9, 2015
What do you get when you take the Boston Marathon, subtract 18.6 miles, and add the Mardi Gras? You get Bay to Breakers, San Francisco’s raucous rowdy road race. Well it’s a race at least for the invited elite runners chomping at the bit at their cordoned off starting line, but for those in the surging crowd behind, it’s a running festival that swells and sways as it sweeps along a 7.46 mile hilly course up and down the streets of San Francisco.
May 17 marked its 104th running. Since its inception in 1912, it’s estimated that 1.8 million costumed two-leg runners have taken off from its start on Howard Street, in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, to share the road with 26-leg centipedes. Cheered on by the partying crowds along the streets or toasting them from rooftops and windows, most runners make it to the finish line at The Great Highway against which the breakers of the Pacific Ocean crash or lap depending on the tide. Those who don’t finish fail not because of a lack of endurance, but a lack of willpower in the face of contagious celebration. In other words they stop to party.
Ah yes, about those centipedes; for those who may be squeamish about creepy crawlers, centipede has a meaning all its own here. In the context of Bay to Breakers, a centipede is team of 13 or more runners tethered together in some manner, embodying some sort of theme. The theme is left open to wide interpretation. Some run simply bungied together, while others form ambulance crews bearing stretchers, fire crews with hoses, even a team wearing fully-set picnic tables. Several other quirks that set the race apart have been banned from the race.
Flying tortillas – No one can pinpoint exactly when tossing tortillas as if they were frisbees became part of the pre-race warm-up, but as the director of marketing told Runners’ World, “When you have tens of thousands of tortillas being tossed around and tens of thousands of people running over them in the early morning San Francisco dew, it’s an absolute mess.”
Rolling Keg Parties – Also gone, at least officially, are the rolling keg parties. In an effort to maintain the family-friendliness of Bay to Breakers, booze has been banned from the racecourse, as well as the backpacks runners wore to carry their stash.
Nudes – Bare bottoms are seriously frowned upon. Bay to Breakers was once known for its naked runners, especially back in the era of flashers in the 70s, but the less said about that, the better.
If you’re moving to San Francisco come see for yourself, whether as a runner or a spectator, why Bay to Breakers is the longest consecutively-run road race in the world. And you can trust San Francisco movers to travel the roads safely, and deliver your household goods on time.
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