Bay to Breakers 100th Anniversary: Our Experience
Adelle and I decided to run the 100th Anniversary of San Francisco's Famous Bay to Breakers 12K 2 weeks ago and here's the report: (sorry it took so long and for that reason this post is extra long) New sponsorship, followed with a new ban of no alcohol on course or ridiculous drunkards running around, Zazzle and the city of San Francisco set out to reduce the mess and ridiculous amount of waste caused by this fanatical race.
The Day Before:
Zazzle held a two day expo where Saturday would feature a guest appearance by non other than Mr. Ultramarathoner Dean Karnazes. We, and by we, I meant me, had to get a photo taken with him. Adelle and our friend Joyce waited patiently in line while I grabbed our race bibs, chips and stuff, then Joyce took this great shot!
He's super nice and was easy to talk to. He would have kept on talking too but I wanted to keep the line moving so I courteously ended the conversation and left. Interestingly enough, he just finished running across the continental United States four days prior to this appearance! What an athlete! Another tidbit of information would be he's amazing 50 marathons in 50 consecutive days in 50 different states. If you want to see and read more of his stuff, his wiki is quite extensive too! (Wiki: Dean Karnazes)
The expo itself was setup well, a little chaotic for my taste, but if you wanted to get in and out, it was definitely easy. We bought some new running belts and Adelle even bought some new Nike Free Livestrong Editions for a great price! Adelle will review at a later time, hopefully, but until then, that's the two cents. Overall, Zazzle did a great job for the first time hosting such a large and legendary event.
Following up with a great lunch and carb-load dinner, we ended the night early in preparation for the 12K. Adelle and I actually thought of running this race for reals for little did we know that there would be a lot of walking on the course slowing our pace. I mean, it's not like we are professional runners or ones that have a set time in mind but we wanted to give it our best. We're "organized" type folk so this is our bed the night before.
The Race:
Getting to the start line was literally a breeze; cold and forecasted to rain. So Adelle and I hurried up a little bit to warm up and got into our coral with time to spare. It was madness with tortillas flying around, naked men and women (mostly men) amazing costumes and fun. When do you ever see people excited to run 12K that early in the morning!?
Along the race, we ran, we walked, we spectated, smelt some medicinal drugs being shared amongst citizens and were just in awe at the awesomeness that this race still was minus the keg running athletes. There was alcohol sporadically throughout the race, policemen trying their best to take the bottle away, but the porta potties along the course were far and few between. Water stations were present but more not operated that well. All in all, a good race with a mediocre pace. Adelle and I haven't ran a race since the 2007 St. Patrick's Day 10K in San Diego so this was a fun one keep pace together.
All the way through the end, we finished strong by the beach and got our cool finisher medals. It was the first time too that Bay to Breakers was handing 'em out, so yes, we feel special. There was even some small time groups selling food at the finish line so we of course indulged. Hand outs were a plenty and the post race party was a blast. We couldn't really stay long because we had to checkout of our hotel by noon so that was that. Although, along the way back to the car that Marella was so nice to pick us up in, we saw a filipino dood sporting a Manny Pacquiao outfit and that was definitely one of the best we all seen. Good job Mr. Impersonator! Sorry no pic because all of us were just too shy. 
Here are screen caps of the waaay too expensive race photos. How come all these race pic companies charge so much anyways?
Running Data: Bib # 46246: 1:26:01 // Bib # 46247 1:26:02 You can actually even see some video of both Adelle and I crossing the finish line at the same time by just typing in our bib numbers on the following link for the actual Bay to Breakers 2011 Live Results Page. (link)
I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but we have officially switched to using tap tap tap's amazing "ultimate photo app" for the iPhone called Camera+. You should definitely check it out. If anything, you can check out adellelijah's stream via campl.us:adellelijah. Instagram is also fun, but there's a bug for iOS 4.1 users that wasn't fixed so I stopped using it. Plus, Camera+ is packed with A LOT more features for those amateur photographers in us. Download it now...we're suporters!
If you want to see some pictures of the craziness along with videos, I found this is an awesome recap. (via nonstophonolulu)
