I made the game day decision to treat this race as a particularly intense tempo run. I'd been going back and forth on whether or not to "race" it, but with all the crowds I knew I'd just get frustrated, and I also wanted to enjoy the craziness.

With that in mind, I kept a pretty easy pace for the first few miles. The crowds could've been worse -- I'd feared that I wouldn't even be able to run for the first mile or so, but everyone started running pretty much as soon as we crossed the start line. I was dodging in between bodies a lot, but it was fun. The spectators were fantastic -- I especially liked the disco zone a mile or two in. Of course, everyone loved the naked people. Some of them were fast! It looks super uncomfortable, but whatever, they were having a good time (Not *that* kind of good time. Um, not that I noticed.).

The crowds would open up every now and then but get clogged up again on turns or at water stops, and the Hayes Street Hill was *packed*. I definitely slowed down there (my pace for mile 3 was a sad 10:24), but kept passing people for the most part.

The race finally started opening up after Hayes Street and I let loose. I considered the first three miles my "warmup" and the rest was going to be my tempo run. It helped that the course is mostly downhill for the last four miles. I was getting kind of hot by then, and it felt pretty humid in Golden Gate Park. My new sunglasses fit much better than the old ones but they were fogging up so much that I finally took them off.

I felt a little pukey in the second half, which may have been because I was pushing harder than I'm used to (sub-8:30s), but also could've been all the crap I'd eaten the day before. I felt fine at the end.

I missed most of the best costumes by running the race, but I was pleased to see so many strong runners were wearing crazy outfits. There were women in flowing dresses and guys in tutus. For a long time I kept pace with a guy wearing a ginormous cowboy hat, and I crossed the finish line with a guy dressed as a sheep.

Race it! Definitely I'd sign up earlier and get a spot with the "real" runners at the front, and then fight through the crowds, instead of mostly going with them, for the first few miles. I'd also push harder, faster after Hayes Street -- looking at my mile splits, it took longer than it should have to start really moving once I was out of the crowds.

I grabbed a bottle of water and made the loooooooooong walk back to the expo grounds. I think it was about a mile and a half? It felt good, actually, and I was glad I had my sweatshirt because I started getting cold right away. After using the restrooms I briefly considered checking out the expo or even making my way over to the race to watch some of the paraders, but decided I'd rather just go home and hopped on one of the first buses back to BART.

On the bus, I overheard a woman on a cell phone making plans to meet up with some friends still doing the race. She was going to take the bus back to the start then run to meet up with them. We were done and they were only about two miles into the race. Yeesh. That's a hell of a lot of people.


Getting stuck in the crowds. Treating the race as a training run instead of a race. I'm also coming off of some high-mileage running weeks, so I wasn't expecting a particularly great run. I would have liked to have been a little faster, but I'm OK with this time.


I'd been to Bay to Breakers a couple times before as a spectator, but never a participant. I was very surprised by how well organized it was (although I probably shouldn't have been since the race has been going on for 97 years). The race started right on time, and while there were certainly thick crowds, they weren't nearly as bad as I'd feared. Support for the race -- from spectators and volunteers -- is fantastic. You can even get a printout of your results just a few minutes after the finish line.