100 Bottles of Beer, 100 Naked Men and other strange sights at Bay to Breakers

Bay to Breakers is as much a part of San Francisco as the Golden Gate Bridge, the Gay Pride Parade and Ghirardelli chocolates. This is my 6th (or is it 7th?) time to run it, and I was so happy I was able to participate in the 100th race. Despite all the health hiccups I encountered in preparing for it, I knew I'd manage to finish it somehow ( thanks to 3Po's amazing fortune-telling abilities) and I'm pretty happy with my finish time (I haven't checked my official time yet, but with my ultra-precise method of checking my phone at the start and finish lines, I clocked myself at about 1:21). Update: my official finish time was 1:21:31.

But Bay to Breakers isn't about about lap times or finish times; heck, it isn't even about the running. It's about the spirit of fun and festivity that surrounds you, and all the zanies you meet along the way.

To celebrate B2B's 100th year, here (in no particular order) are 100 of the wild and wacky characters I encountered while running the 100th Bay to Breakers:



1) Okay, let's get this one over with: Naked people. C'mon, you know that's what pops into your mind when you hear B2B.


2) Crayons
3) A woman in a peacock samba outfit
4) Topless women
5) Catwoman
6) Superwoman
7) Salmon "swimming upstream" (running in the opposite direction, another B2B classic)
8) 100 Bottles of Beer on a Wall


9) Mario from Super Mario Brothers
10) Computers
11) A Roman legionnaire
12) Fred Flintstone
13) Star Wars Clone Troopers
14) Firefighters
15) Thor


16) Baseball players
17) Football players
18) Lionel Messi
19) Thing 1
20) Thing 2
21) The Cat in the Hat
22) Women with tutus
23) Women with fairy wings
24) Men with tutus
25) Men with fairy wings
26) Men in bright blue speedos
27) Men in Hawaiian shirts
28) Women in grass skirts
29) Women in evening gowns
30) A man in a suit
31) Blue Smurfs
32) Beauty queens (my favorite had a sash with "Miss B2B Centennial" on it)
33) Drag queens
34) A snake
35) A gorilla
36) Bananas


37) Elvis impersonators
38) Waldo (from Where's Waldo)
39) Birthday cake hats
40) Jester hats


Okay, I'll admit it. I've searched through my memory, and I could only come up with 40 that I remember seeing as I ran -- and I kind of cheated, because I don't actually remember seeing the Clone Troopers, I only saw them afterwards in a photo I took along the way. Also, the Smurfs weren't actually running when I saw them, they were on the sidelines. Hey, they could have jumped in, for all I know.

In defense of my memory, I was assigned to the first starting "wave" of 10,000 (out of 50,000 official participants plus who knows how many people without official race numbers), and I was surrounded by people who were actually running. Most of the wacky getups were partying at the back of the pack. The other sixty below are characters that Alfie and the kids saw as they watched from the sidelines:


41) Siamese twins
42) A dog (a real one) with a tutu
43) A man in a wedding dress
44) Sheep shagger (a guy with his jeans down to his ankles and a stuffed sheep tied to his front)
45) Toilet seat hat (i.e. Princess Beatrice's Royal Wedding hat)
46) Man in a green full body spandex suit (covering his body and his head)
47) Pinatas
48) Care Bears
49) Six Sheets to the Wind (six people wearing sheets, each with the words "Six", "Sheets", "To", "The", "Wind", "!"
50) Bride and groom
51) Bumblebees
52) Michael Jackson
53) Osama Bin Laden (complete with bullet hole on his forehead)
54) A pirate ship (made out of a bunch of people wearing cardboard ship parts)
55) The Muppets (Gladys, Animal, Beaker)



56) Cows
57) Construction workers
58) Wolves
59) Prisoner
60) Man with an inflatable monkey on his shoulders
61) Man with an inflatable dinosaur on his shoulders
62) Hula hooping girl
63) Sumo wrestlers in blow up suits
64) The Black Swan
65) Spiderman
66) Darth Vader
67) Topless woman with her number covering her boobs
68) People with nude bodystockings
69) People wearing police hats and underwear
70) Air pilots in underpants
71) Giraffes
72) Skeleton
73) 50 Garden gnomes
74) A birthday cake
75) Batman
76) Superman
77) Golden car driven by a man in a golden suit with a topless woman wearing a golden skirt and gold stickers covering her nipples
78) Toad from Super Mario Brothers
79) Luigi from Super Mario Brothers
80) Princess Peach from Super Mario Brothers
81) Slinky the Dog from Toy Story
82) Man covered from head to toe with balloons
83) Man covered from head to toe with clownfish
84) Angels
85) Peeps
86) Spongebob Squarepants
87) Poker Table
88) Restaurant Tables
89) Elmo
90) Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie
91) Barmaid
92) 3 blind mice

Okay, I know I said I'd get naked people over and done with at #1. But who would have thought there were so many ways to get naked? Hey, this is Bay to Breakers!

93) Naked man with a pirate hat
94) Naked man with an Egyptian headdress


95) Naked men with hard-ons
96) Naked Elvis impersonator
97) Naked man with star stickers all over his body
98) Naked man with a fig leaf stuck over his privates
99)Naked man with body paint
100) I don't even know how to describe this:




This list gives me all kinds of ideas and inspiration for next year's Bay to Breakers. I'm thinking body paint, peacock feathers and about a year's worth of workouts.....


Can't get enough of B2B? You might like this:
My 2007 Bay to Breakers experience
My 2006 Bay to Breakers experience