bay to breakers - the best day in SF

 For all of you unfamiliar with this most amazing of SF events: Bay to Breakers is a cross-city marathon held annually at the end of May, which starts downtown (near the Bay) and finishes at the end of Golden Gate Park (near the ocean – thus the name). There are plenty of marathon types who run, but for everyone else it is a costumed parade of drunken debauchery & keg-floats that meanders across the city starting around 8am and ending around noonish with various dance parties in GGP. Besides the elaborate homemade floats (usually equipped with DJ’s and drink stations, if not full-on kegs), there are also Centipede Runners – 10 people tied together running the race as a pack. It truly is the most insane and amazing thing.

We went with current-event themed Olympic costumes this year – I was the Torch and Matt was my Torch Security Guard. Here we are with a fine group of pilots (always a popular costume choice).

 Winner of most impressive float: Inflatable bouncy house. I don’t know how they pulled that thing with people inside, but it was amazing to watch it blow up in the middle of the street and then slowly wobble down the road.

Last year's float winner: Trojan Horse.  Where the citizens of SF construct these things pre-Bay to Breakers, I have no idea.  It's impressive.  This year's popular costumes included several Olympic hula-hoop/ping-pong/random sport teams, and many Juno girls with jugs of Sunny D with their track suited BF's.  Basically, anything involving old-school striped running socks is a good idea.


And at the end of the day, it’s nice to help the SFDW help with the clean-up. (You can tell it’s a good event when the city garbage guys let everyone hop on for a photo op while they’re trying to clean up the beer bottle-littered streets.)