From Wiki:
The Bay to Breakers is an annual footrace which takes place in San Francisco, California. The name reflects the fact that the race starts at the northeast end of the downtown area a few blocks from The Embarcadero (adjacent to the bay) and runs west through the city to finish at the Great Highway (adjacent to the Pacific coast, where breakers crash onto Ocean Beach). The race is 7.46 miles (12 kilometers) long, and is run on the third Sunday in May. [1]
Started in 1912 as a way to lift the city’s spirits after the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake, it is the longest consecutively running footrace in the world (other races’ courses and lengths have changed over time). Currently the average participation is between 70,000 and 80,000 runners. The San Francisco Examiner publishes a list of the first 10,000 finishers the day after the race each year.
Large numbers of participants walk the route behind the runners. Some participants dress in elaborate costumes or, though not technically allowed, wear nothing at all (except footwear), thus lending a party atmosphere to the event. One festive tradition is the tortilla toss, during which runners throw tortillas at one another to pass time (similar to balloon-batting at rock concerts). This was originated by Kinry Louie back in the early 90s. Years before the tortilla tossing started people used to throw their clothes and beach balls around up in the air as it was amusing to watch the flying clothes on television. As Kinry Louie was leaving for the race and knowing that he could not part with his clothes and didn’t have a beach ball; he noticed that he had a number of bags of tortilla in the kitchen and thought that it would be cheaper to fly them like frisbees (because they were soft and would not hurt anyone) so he handed out bags of tortillas to his friends who were with him at the Bay to Breakers race and started flinging them.
Bay to Breakers is also the world’s premiere event for “centipede racers.” Competing teams in the centipede race must consist of a minimum of 13 runners tethered together, usually in some artistic fashion. An additional runner, a floater, usually the team captain, is allowed to run along untethered to pace the team or substitute for drop out runner. Despite the novelty, the centipede race is very competitive. The centipede winners used to have better finishing records than the women’s division until just a decade ago.
Other oddities are always on the scene, including traditional characters such as Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man, as well as other unique characters spawned for the race. There is also a group of “salmon,” runners who don fish-like hats and start at the finish line to run upstream through the participants.
B2B is a pretty legendary event in San Francisco. Although there are lots of people who run the race seriously, the vast majority of participants do not register and walk the race course in sometimes elaborate costumes while drinking heavily. Some large groups build floats and many others push decorated shopping carts with kegs or other drinking supplies in them.
Griffin and I didn’t participate (although a large group from work was going to) but instead opted to be spectators. We were throughly amused. I tried to get some good pictures but because there were so many people it was hard. Here’s some of the better ones (to see full size click the picture once, let the page load and then click the picture again):
Since my pictures kinda stunk, here’s some from the San Francisco Chronicle:
