Posts Tagged ‘bay to breakers’

Baghdad by the Bay

Yesterday was the annual Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco, but you don’t want to read about it, you want photos, so go here.

Save the Bay to Breakers!

For the record, let me state that I have never run the 12k Bay to Breakers, a race in San Francisco run annually since 1912. Nor do I condone public drunkenness and nudity (besides, most people who get naked in public are people you would never want to see naked in private).

But it is incumbent upon anyone with a web site named “Running Is Funny” not to sit idly by while one of the funniest races in the country is reduced to the ordinary.

For this year’s race, organizers of the event are banning alcohol and nudity - which, frankly, are the distinguishing features of the race – plus instituting other rules regarding floats and who gets to run where. The latter may cause some problems for the runners who dress as salmon and run the opposite way, against the flow of the other runners.

Reaction to the news has been robust. A story about the new rules on the City Insider has generated 445 comments. The Poop was less than understanding about it:

People who move in next to pig farms have to deal with the smell. People who move in next to freeways have to deal with the noise. And people who live along the Bay to Breakers route have to know that their front sidewalk will become a river of urine one Sunday morning every year.

Because it’s San Francisco, there is already a web site and an online petition protesting the changes.

Some people are even worried about the end of the tortilla toss:

In their defense, the residents along the race route have had to deal with extraordinary amounts of garbage left by runners and spectators, not to mention the public drunkenness, nudity and bladder relief. Long-time runner Vance Cardell has an explanation for why public urination is on the rise:

These days, everyone is carrying a bottle of water. Everyone is hydrated. I come from the dehydrated era. Maybe we peed less.

San Francisco isn’t Boulder, Colorado. I expect widespread civil disobedience. Keep your eye on this one.