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jamesqThe point of the trip was to do Bay to Breakers. As advertised, you start a few blocks from San Francisco Bay and then run more or less straight west until you reach the Breakers of the Pacific Ocean.
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thebrucie drove us down to Ferry Building, which was about as close as vehicular traffic could get to our starting corral. There were about eight starting corrals and each one was about two city blocks. While waiting, people started throwing tortillas, which is apparently a thing. There were a lot of them, and I got hit a couple times, and subsequently threw the tortillas in my vicinity on forward. No doubt they, in turn, hit other people. ♫ It's the circle of bread! ♫
Our starting corral. Note that there we're 2/3 of the way back and there's on the order of 10000 people on these two blocks. Also note the tortilla.
The race started 30 minutes late. The Hayes Hill challenge had two gates (one at the bottom of the hill, one at the top) and the gates weren't in place yet. Given how fast the elite runners were, that's something you want finished before you pulled the trigger. Eventually we started and it was slow going for the first Km. The second Km I got my rhythm. And then I reached the third Km - the base of Hayes Hill.
So you know how every car chase ever filmed in San Francisco goes up and down these impossibly steep hills. Well we had to run up them. Or rather, LA ran up the hill. I walked. It was a power walk, but it was still a walk. Once again, my height was an advantage here, since I probably still did the hill faster. No way of really knowing though without checking our Endomondo logs. There is a Hayes Hills challenge (as I mentioned earlier), which times people for just that portion of the race, but it was sponsored by FitBit, so you needed to use their app to qualify.
The photo doesn't give a good perspective of just how steep this hill was. Look on the right hand side at those two telephone poles - the road rises about half a story between them. On the bright side, that's about it for hill climbing. It's more-or-less downhill from there.
Next up we enter Golden Gate park, which is very pretty and is something I wouldn't mind spending a solid day exploring. A nice gentle, barely noticeable decline to the breakers in some awesome greenery. If we didn't have some Westboro Baptist wanna-be shouting at people with his loud speaker it would have been perfect. On the other hand, seeing native San Franciscans responding to this guy was hilarious. I was actually laughing out loud.
I was the first to finish, with a time of 1:31:00. Next was LA at 1:32:06 (and she ran the whole route folks, unlike my running/walking ass). Finishing up was AF at 1:32:11. I'm inordinately proud of beating both of them, but I wish I hadn't stopped half way through the race to take a leak. I could have been two more minutes ahead of them. I'd have liked to have done the race in 1:15:00, which is a pace I could do when I'm in shape and twenty pounds lighter. Sadly, I've been slacking a lot this year.
Final observations? The race is only a race for the first 10000 people. For everyone else it's really a fast moving party. Probably 1/3 of the participants were in costume, some way too elaborate to run in. There was house parties, music, dancing, and quite a bit of booze. It was a foot race mixed in with all things San Francisco.
And there was some nudity. I didn't see any naked ladies, though my friends did. I did see six and half naked men. Most noteworthy was the guy wearing two feet of flexible PVC tube on his cock red-hot-chili-pepper style. He was the "half", since I couldn't honestly say he was 100% naked. The other noteworthy guy was after the race and we were walking to a coffee ship for our post-race treat. A fellow walked towards us wearing nothing but sandals. He shook wiggled his cock at us with a "woo hoo!". Bruce observed that his hair was fine and he wasn't sweaty. Clearly he hadn't run the race. This could mean one of three things:
I would do Bay to Breakers again. But there's other races to do too.
thebrucie drove us down to Ferry Building, which was about as close as vehicular traffic could get to our starting corral. There were about eight starting corrals and each one was about two city blocks. While waiting, people started throwing tortillas, which is apparently a thing. There were a lot of them, and I got hit a couple times, and subsequently threw the tortillas in my vicinity on forward. No doubt they, in turn, hit other people. ♫ It's the circle of bread! ♫Our starting corral. Note that there we're 2/3 of the way back and there's on the order of 10000 people on these two blocks. Also note the tortilla.
The race started 30 minutes late. The Hayes Hill challenge had two gates (one at the bottom of the hill, one at the top) and the gates weren't in place yet. Given how fast the elite runners were, that's something you want finished before you pulled the trigger. Eventually we started and it was slow going for the first Km. The second Km I got my rhythm. And then I reached the third Km - the base of Hayes Hill.
So you know how every car chase ever filmed in San Francisco goes up and down these impossibly steep hills. Well we had to run up them. Or rather, LA ran up the hill. I walked. It was a power walk, but it was still a walk. Once again, my height was an advantage here, since I probably still did the hill faster. No way of really knowing though without checking our Endomondo logs. There is a Hayes Hills challenge (as I mentioned earlier), which times people for just that portion of the race, but it was sponsored by FitBit, so you needed to use their app to qualify.
The photo doesn't give a good perspective of just how steep this hill was. Look on the right hand side at those two telephone poles - the road rises about half a story between them. On the bright side, that's about it for hill climbing. It's more-or-less downhill from there.
Next up we enter Golden Gate park, which is very pretty and is something I wouldn't mind spending a solid day exploring. A nice gentle, barely noticeable decline to the breakers in some awesome greenery. If we didn't have some Westboro Baptist wanna-be shouting at people with his loud speaker it would have been perfect. On the other hand, seeing native San Franciscans responding to this guy was hilarious. I was actually laughing out loud.
I was the first to finish, with a time of 1:31:00. Next was LA at 1:32:06 (and she ran the whole route folks, unlike my running/walking ass). Finishing up was AF at 1:32:11. I'm inordinately proud of beating both of them, but I wish I hadn't stopped half way through the race to take a leak. I could have been two more minutes ahead of them. I'd have liked to have done the race in 1:15:00, which is a pace I could do when I'm in shape and twenty pounds lighter. Sadly, I've been slacking a lot this year.
Final observations? The race is only a race for the first 10000 people. For everyone else it's really a fast moving party. Probably 1/3 of the participants were in costume, some way too elaborate to run in. There was house parties, music, dancing, and quite a bit of booze. It was a foot race mixed in with all things San Francisco.
And there was some nudity. I didn't see any naked ladies, though my friends did. I did see six and half naked men. Most noteworthy was the guy wearing two feet of flexible PVC tube on his cock red-hot-chili-pepper style. He was the "half", since I couldn't honestly say he was 100% naked. The other noteworthy guy was after the race and we were walking to a coffee ship for our post-race treat. A fellow walked towards us wearing nothing but sandals. He shook wiggled his cock at us with a "woo hoo!". Bruce observed that his hair was fine and he wasn't sweaty. Clearly he hadn't run the race. This could mean one of three things:
- He did run the race, but recovered quickly.
- He didn't run the race, but heard "bay to breakers" and immediately dropped trou.
- "So you're naked because of Bay to Breakers?"
"What? Bay to Breakers is today?!?"
I would do Bay to Breakers again. But there's other races to do too.
