Thursday, May 22, 2008

Bay to Breakers

On Sunday May 18, I ran a famous race in San Francisco called Bay to Breakers. I wrote about it last year after running it but I didn't run it in costume. This year I donned a monkey suit and decided to run the 12 km course as fast as I could. I knew it would be hot since the costume is long sleeve and also has a hood but that didn't deter me. Luckily the temps cooled considerably on the day of the race from the previous days. Roughly 40,000-60,000 people walk, hobble, run the course with about 25,000 actually paying to do it. It's a chance for some to drink out in public while walking from downtown SF to the ocean. Many dress up in costumes, some are totally nude, and others are serious runners trying to win the cash prize of 25,000. Kenyans naturally win it but there was a close finish this year with a young Moroccan coming in a close second. I took a hybrid approach of dressing in costume and running the race and then running back to meet up with friends who are drinking, i mean walking the course. I ended up running about 12 miles total on Sunday. My time for the 7.5 mile course was 48:28 (6:30 min. pace) which took 3 minutes off my previous year's time.