The Bay to Breakers field making its way down the Hayes St. hill. If you're a runner, you've probably heard of San Francisco's classic race, Bay to Breakers. It's a 12K that starts near the Ferry Building just above San Francisco Bay, and finishes on the coastline with a view of the Breakers at Ocean Beach. It's not just a race, though. It's essentially a moving street party that takes over the mid-section of San Francisco. There were 20,000+ registered participants this year, though I would imagine not all of them were seriously running. The race? It was fantastic. I was fortunate enough to register in Corral A, and was only one minute off the gun when I crossed the starting line. Getting to the appropriate corral was easy enough -- though I definitely had to be aggressive in making my way through the entries for Corrals B, C, and D. It was quite obvious the race organizers had either oversold Corral A, or failed to make enough room for the number of runners signed up for Corral A. With 10 minutes left to go before the start, Corral A runners had to push and shove just to get off the entry path and into the corral. Fortunately for me, I managed to sneak in and get settled just moments before the gun. However, even with corrals set up, there was no wave start. There was a small elite group, with Ryan Hall and Diane Nukuri-Johnson headlining. That group left the same time the rest of Corral A did. All corrals were released as soon as they could move, which made for a very congested start. Portland's Shamrock Run had a wave start, as did the Eugene Marathon. Why would a race with 21,000+ registered not also use a wave start? Once we were moving, mile one was understandably slow. With thousands of runners all making their way up Howard St., mile one started a little slow. A few small elevation changes thinned out the crowd, and soon enough I was moving comfortably and finished mile one at 9:10. Besides, it was fun to take in the eclectically-dressed (and some not-so-dressed) crowd and all the sights.
Just a few of the "costumes" abound during B2B Knowing the Hayes St. hill and its 11% grade was coming soon, I held back on mile 2, and finished this one at 9:10 as well. I've run plenty of steep hills before, but Hayes St. was something else. The grade starts innocently enough, but it quickly ascends as you near Alamo Square. At its steepest point, it's a half-mile of sheer torture. It was a huge struggle attempting to keep my legs turning over and moving. Somehow, I made it -- but with a disappointing 10:16 split on mile 3. This was even with a sharp downhill portion of about two blocks on the other side of Hayes. Still, as torturous as the climb was, throngs of partiers and race-watchers were lined up along the houses on Hayes even at 7:00 in the morning! From here, runners turned left on Divisadero then up Fell, making their way down to Golden Gate Park. The trees in the park provided for some-much-needed shady relief -- as cool as SF weather usually is, it was pretty warm Sunday morning. The sun beating down our backs left me totally drenched with sweat! This section was mostly downhill, with a few very minor uphill sections. There was a nice downhill slingshot towards the final turn and ascent up to the finish. This section moved particularly quick for me -- mile 4: 9:05; mile 5: 8:38; mile 6: 8:22; mile 7: 8:18; mile 7.5: 7:23. The route's finish changed slightly. It had finished with a right turn from JFK and then a left onto Great Hwy. This year, it was a left off JFK, and then a Z-turn on MLK before heading right onto Great Hwy and on to the finish. I had hoped to finish at 1:08 or better, but given Hayes St, I was OK with finishing in the 1:10 neighborhood. I beat both targets easily.
Medal awarded to 2012 B2B finishers. Disappointments? For one, no medals! B2B had awarded medals in years past, but chose not to this year. Makes me wonder if the lack of a title sponsor until March or so had anything to do with it. If you peruse the posts on B2B's Facebook page, it's clear I wasn't the only one. Sure, it's just a shiny piece of metal, but I love shiny pieces of metal! A medal really feels like it should be a given for a race of this size. Equally disappointing? The quality of the $30 event shirts. Tech shirts, yes. Highest quality (Nike Dri-Fit, Adidas ClimaLite, etc.)? Not at all. Just cheap A4 brand shirts. I know how much it costs to screen print these things. And with the volume of shirts B2B ordered, it's highly likely the organizers paid less than $3-4 per shirt -- which they proceeded to charge runners $30. And don't get me started on the finish area-turned-airport. The entire finish area was completely barricaded from end-to-end. All of the paths from Golden Gate Park and Fulton St. were completely sealed off and kept spectators from accessing the finish. I get this -- we're all afraid of Boston happening all over again. Just like airport "security" however, this is all farcical. This is punishing the thousands of innocent and keeping them from what they want to do as opposed to providing any real sense of security. Biggest disappointment? Complete lack of coordination whatsoever with MUNI. B2B organizers were pimping $12 fare stickers at the expo. Did they have any information on how useful were these stickers? Not one bit. They deferred all transit-related questions to MUNI. Which would've been fine, had MUNI bothered to show up to the expo. As a parallel -- TriMet had representatives to answer all transit-related questions at the Portland Shamrock Run expo. MUNI also failed to release any B2B-related transit information until May 16th -- just three days before the race. With this event shutting down multiple transit lines, they failed to get information out in adequate time. I finally deciphered their press release mere hours before we left for the race. We managed to figure out how to get to the starting area just fine, but why this information wasn't obvious, or released early is a mystery to me. MUNI's fail doesn't end here, unfortunately. Once the race commenced, with a large chunk of the runners finishing within an 60-90 minutes of the start, MUNI didn't have a single outbound bus or train from the start area to the finish until nearly 7:45. This bus wouldn't reach the finish until 8:30, guaranteeing hundreds, if not thousands of would-be spectators never got the chance to make it to the finish area. MUNI has two lines -- N Judah and 5 Fulton -- that would've made it there. Only the 5 was functional at the time. How an otherwise well-run transit agency could've failed so horrifically during an event that happens every year in San Francisco, I don't know. Obviously, the transit agency's problems aren't those of the B2B organizers. That said, with the massive missteps that the organizers made, and the utter cluster that transportation was made for a pretty crappy logistical experience. Thank goodness the race itself was one to remember.
