Bay to Breakers lbrr

(Update - I just went to the chiropractor and I still have some pain, but I'm no longer a hunchback. Hopefully we'll be on the road again soon.)



Silas and I woke up around 6 am last Sunday to have some breakfast (a
bowl of cereal for me, a fistful of banana for him) and jog over to the
Ashby BART station. We were on our way to San Francisco to run the 96th
Bay to Breakers 12K. B2B is more of an event than a race (although John
Korir and Catherine Ndereba did show up) where everyone lets their freak
flag fly. The packet that I got in the mail with my number included a
list of beer specials at bars on the course. It's also the only large
race that I know of that allows strollers, so I decided that we would
give it a try.

Just like every day out here, the weather wqas perfect for racing. We
rode on a BART train crowded with other runners, I in traditional running
garb and Silas in his monkey suit, still clutching his banana. We all
got off at the Embarcadero station in downtown SF. I changed a diaper
(Silas's) outside next to the ferry building, while Si occupied himself
by watching a man in a banana suit and watching the buses drive by.

We headed to the start, passing people in Mexican wrestling costumes,
pushing keg-carts, and wearing prom dresses. As a wheeled object, we
had to start in Zone 2, at the back of the pack. Soon, and
inexplicably, hundreds of tortillas were flying through the air. I
wasn't sure where they were coming from, but some runners had handfuls
of tortillas that they were throwing Frisbee style. Silas finally
finished his banana and I dropped him into his stroller as we waited for
the gun.

The elite women got a head start, then the elite men, then the rest of
us (Edna Kiplagat was the eventual winner, while John Korrir was the
first male). I was not expecting a fast race, but I was hoping for a
good workout with a 7 minute pace. The first mile went very slowly, of
course, with lots of starting and stopping, walking, and trying not to
hit people with the stroller. There was a bottleneck in the road where
an Elvis impersonator had set up a stage in the middle of an
intersection and people were stopping to listen. Another group of guys
had set up a basketball goal in the middle of the road and were passing
a ball to runners to shoot field goals. I never actually saw the first
mile marker (in fact, I only ever saw a marker for mile 6), but figured
that it went by in about 12 minutes. Mile 2 wasn't any faster, but
included the highlight of the run for me. I saw a line of people
running toward me in fish costumes - dressed as salmon, in fact. There
were 20-30 people in this costume, all in a line and running against the
"current", chanting "Spawn! Spawn!".

During mile 3, we approached the dreaded Hayes St Hill, an 11% grade
that stretches for maybe 1/2 a mile. The road was still very crowded,
though, so it was only possible to run this at a snail's pace, making
the hill much easier than I'd expected. At the top of the hill, Silas
had to get out of the stroller for some Daddy time, so we pulled over to
the right side of the road and I carried him while we walked down the
hill. By the bottom of the hill, we were both feeling better, so back
in the stroller and back to jogging. Mile 4, I remembered from the
course map, ended at the panhandle of Golden Gate Park; here my watch
read about 44 minutes. The crowd had thinned out a bit, and I was able
to run at a more comfortable pace, but still much slower than in any of
my daily runs.

As we came into the park, Silas and I joined some runners off-road to
run on the bike path at a somewhat faster pace. Here we saw (and
passed) banana-suit man, as well as a couple dressed as skunks and
pushing a stroller. The rest of the race was pretty uneventful, so Si
fell asleep - he was recognized by the finish line announcer as the
first to finish the race in his sleep. We finished in 1:17 or
something, around 6000th place out of 25,000. We met up with Christine
and my cousins Scott and Karen afterwards for brunch in the city before
heading home.

It's hard for me to know what to do with an experience like this. On
one hand, it is fun to commune with thousands of other runners who are
out for a good time and to see what costumes people come up with; on the
other, most of the race was run at an uncomfortably slow pace, with my
looking at the ground to make sure Silas wasn't rolling over people's
toes. I think if I were to run this race again, I would go solo and in
the sub-seeded section (assuming that I can make the 37:30 10k
qualifying time). Silas can join me in small 5k runs in the future,
although he keeps getting himself disqualified for high levels of HGH.

Unfortunately, with the inaugural post this blog is now an injury blog,
as I am experiencing some serious back pain that prevents me from standing
up straight, much less running. I'm off to the chiropractor later this
afternoon, though, so hopefully we'll be back on the road again as I train
for the San Francisco half marathon in July. I am still looking for a
running club out here, although I did get in a good run last week with one
of my coworkers.