Bay to Breakers: A Walk to Remember

The first thing I heard was the deep hum of the slowly moving police motorcycles, then the far-off moan of a plastic stadium horn. Another mimicked its call. I was coming up on the rear of the Bay to Breakers starting line.

Not the official start for the runners. Not to discount them, but I was more interested in the “walkers,” the thousands of pillagers from around the region, mainly young, who come to the annual event not to compete, but to party and to maybe make it from the Bay to the breakers of the Pacific. I could hear the faint roar of thousands of voices now. 

Hustling to catch up, I skirted stragglers—a man in a disheveled banana suit, its front stained orange, a pink-wigged woman clad in neon yellow spandex from head to toe yelling into her cell phone, an unsteady man wearing a bear suit with a crown—before I came within sight of the police, who made up the rear guard of the line. I was within sight of probably the longest mass of people I have ever seen. 

It writhed in all different colors down Hayes Street and disappeared as it turned onto Divisadero. Bay to Breakers’s Centennial: 100 years of a little bit of racing and much revelry.

This Bay to Breakers was my first, however, and I let the sight of the crowd sink in for a while. That is, until I glanced to the right; a middle-aged man, potbelly beaming in the sun, stood in the middle of the street naked as the day he was born, smiling at no one in particular. I hurried on.

Finally, I was in the thick of it. I Barely had room to maneuver on Hayes Street. There was a circle of men dressed like cows wearing Ray Bans and drinking from brown paper bags, house music blasting out of speakers perched on window sills two stories up and eddies in the crowd where “walkers” had stopped to dance. Men waved signs in those same windowsills suggesting the crowd do, or expose, certain things. There were more Black Swan costumes than you could shake a stick at.

Some costumes I cannot even fathom defining. As near I can tell one such getup was comprised of a head-to-toe bright green furry sack with speakers protruding from the belly (also pumping House music) and just a little hole to expose a beet red face at the top. Moldy pear? Tennis ball? I’m still not sure. Some were far stranger, however.

Others seemed mundane at first, but became more absurd the longer I looked. The “horse men” come to mind. They’d donned rather realistic looking rubber horse masks that drew stares. One stood quietly on the sidewalk pointing his walking stick at one walker after another, really creeping people out.

At Alamo Square Park the walkers began to branch off from the main column and either tramped through the park or settled in for a bit of sun or drinking. Gawkers hung over the temporary fence along the street and over the railings as the street sloped downward. A young man in red eyeglasses shook a plastic flamingo at passersby as he hung on to a light pole, screaming something unintelligible. Another young man in a loincloth and a grass necklace walked against the flow, gesturing meekly at and moving toward anyone who would humor him.

As we neared Divisadero, where the course took a turn, movement slowed. Lil Jon’s “Shots” undulating from a boombox drew a crowd of dancers who suffered a barrage of water balloons from a balcony. This area, it seemed, was also a place to refuel. Lines, dozens long, snaked from the entrances of liquor stores, restaurants were packed, not to mention the queues in front the porto-potties. I took a break by a chain link fence and watched a pair of men dressed like chickens and a pair of women dressed as brides stagger by. A beach ball streaked across the sky and was swallowed by the crowd. A sign with “I AM ON A DRUG IT’S CALLED CHARLIE SHEEN” printed on it plus the actor’s visage bobbed up and down over everyone’s face.

The madness seemed to be thickening as the walkers trundled closer to the Panhandle and Golden Gate Park, where I’d been told the true “craziness” happened.

In the Panhandle, however, the San Francisco Police, who had otherwise not been present as far as I could tell except for their rear cavalcade to move the crowd along, fanned out. They walked their bikes among those who had decided to sit down on the grass and began grabbing beverages from hands and pouring them out. Some drinkers protested, but more just smirked, realizing the jig was up. I didn’t see any tickets being written yet, however. After pouring out the contents of a two-liter Pepsi bottle, one officer flashed me a peace sign before walking away.

Fell Street, which runs along the Panhandle, was really more of a string of miniature parties than any kind of race or parade. Residents sat on the stoops of their tall, skinny houses and cheered on dancers in the street. Some unofficial booths had also been set up and I stopped at one that had a sign over it advertising “Magic Kool-Aid.”

“What’s in it?” I asked the man behind the stand, who looked like a Bay to Breakers vet. 

“Magic. No acid, no roofies,” he replied and handed me a paper cup filled with the dark red liquid.

I never did find out what was in that Kool-Aid. 

The wear and tear of the road, and drink, was beginning to show on the walkers now. People were actually starting to get drunk-in-public tickets near Fell and Stanyan, and a woman dressed like a Go-Go Girl biffed it hard on her roller skates in the Panhandle. She just laughed it off. Others, whose wills had been crushed by an arduous day of partying, simply sprawled out in the sun-warmed grass and passed out. Fine weather for carousing. 

“What did you come here for?” I asked one young woman standing near a temporary barricade on Fell Street.

“To get housed,” she said and went off, muttering about finding a bathroom.

Enter Golden Gate Park. It seemed far from crazed, as I’d been told it would be. Maybe it was the cops riding through the crowd on horseback, but the crowd has thinned. Only those truly determined to get to the ocean remained, but even their ranks were thinning. Perhaps Bay to Breakers had become more of an endurance test for the partiers, and not because of the walking.

People who still had energy swarmed Golden Gate’s many statues, climbing the stone steps, lifting themselves ever higher while screaming for friends to take a picture. I climbed on myself to get a good look at the land. The crowd was truly sparse further West at this point in the day.

It seemed few in that originally immense column of people was actually going to make it to the ocean. Many had returned to Fell Street for more dancing and partying, or had gone home, and in fact a current of people heading east had formed.

I admit I didn’t make it to the Pacific, either. Maybe next year. Maybe I’ll run Bay to Breakers and beat this crowd, be one of the sweaty guys heading against the current of walkers at 10 a.m. All in all, however, I’d never experienced anything quite like the event—my first major street festival.

I definitely look forward to next year’s debauchery.