One week into my new life in colder-than-the-UK-has-been-since-I-left San Francisco, and I already found a stupid race to run with my new US club: West Valley Track Club. It sounds like a serious name, but so far I’ve discovered that they are kind of like the Carnethy of San Francisco clubs: friendly, open to all (including bloody immigrants), and every training session finishes in the pub (The Mucky Duck).
The race in question is the biggest running race in the world: Bay To Breakers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_to_Breakers). B2B, which regularly gets 50,000-100,000(!) runners, is a point-to-point 12km road race from one side of San Francisco (on the bay) to the other (on the Pacific). And it’s not just any race: it’s kind of a wacky carnival that really has to be seen to be believed. A good way to describe it would be to say that Bob Johnson would be, if anything, underdressed (or do I mean overdressed?) for the majority of participants of this race in any of his wacky hill top ‘costumes’. I attach a few examples for some inspiration for Bob. The most talked about feature of the course itself is one of San Francisco’s notorious hills: Hayes Street Hill, which climbs 100m in half a mile: not much by hill running standards, but feels like it goes on for ever when you are running hard up it. After that it’s pretty undulating before a sharp drop down to the finish at the ocean with chia seed juice and coconut water aplenty.
There are a few interesting sub-races that go on during B2B: the first is the Salmon race, where people start from the opposite direction and ‘swim against the current’ dressed as fish. The second is the ‘centipede race’, where teams of 13 runners, connected at the waist by bungees less than a metre long, compete for the prestigious title of world centipede champions. And this was the race that I had got roped into (pun intended) during my first track session last week.
The feeling of running in a centipede is pretty hard to explain, so I will just attach a picture, but it was super fun, has a very scientific runner order formula, and is the best way for a foreigner to make new friends since they can’t get away from you! Unfortunately we were just pipped into second place by the Shettleston of California: the Asics Aggies. During the race, I think I managed to get new 5k and 10k PBs, so I’m now considering a future in road running… Nawt!!
BUT: I think Carnethy Ltd(!) should definitely investigate a centipede hill race.
Iain Whiteside