My nerves were shot as the day approached. In my mind’s eye, I saw my mother’s face. A conservative, religious woman, I could see her mouth pursed in disapproval. Costumed freaks, naked people, I could hear her echo scornfully. The question of why I would want to participate in such an event hung in the air like the odor in the neighborhood on a sweltering hot garbage day.
Thunderstorms were predicted to hit San Francisco the evening of the 100th Bay To Breakers Race, and to continue throughout the next day. The impulse to cancel jabbed at my psyche. The will, the curiosity, and the need to perform what I had trained for months to do, squelched the most unwelcome argument. Our brains are a funny thing. They can be our greatest motivators, our best cheerleaders, and our worst enemies. When training for a run, or any fitness regimen in general, the brain tells us at first all of the reasons why we shouldn’t do something. Why it’s easier to sit on the couch and chomp on a doughnut. How dare we change, how dare we dream, how dare we run with costumed freaks and naked people. At these times, we must let the mechanical part of our brain take over, and order our bodies to follow. There were days of training where I stop talking to myself, and simply lace my shoes, pull my hair back, and turn on the treadmill, letting nary a thought creep into my mind. Eat your rice, clean your bowl. So the old Zen saying goes.
I trained for weeks, sweating and groaning on the treadmill as my middle and pinky toes burned underneath me, and my knees felt so rickety I was sure leg braces were a part of my near future. Some people say humans were biologically made to run for miles everyday, chasing and hunting down their food. I must be a descendant of fat bottomed aliens who lived off the fruit of the land. As soon as I get up, a body part starts hurting. But I was determined to run this race on my birthday, resigned to perhaps walking a bulk of the course. With a maximum endurance strength of seven and a half miles two weeks before the race, I was going to get out onto the street and do the best I could. When I pictured running, I pictured grimacing faces, flying droplets of sweat, clenched fists, and feet pounding in a hard core beat on the pavement.
The night before, we ate at a popular restaurant called The Slanted Door, and my running mates and I loaded up on glass noodles with Dungeness crab and lamb chops with an exotic orange sauce. Diners were jovial and plentiful, laughing softly at their tables. They wore skinny jeans, scarves with a myriad of colors ties multiple times around their necks, and boots so high it seemed their legs would buckle under them any minute. When they pushed open the glass doors of the restaurant, it seemed as if they would take off as a group and fly into the blue sky dotted with clouds that hung over the Bay Bridge. The diners held a quiet aura of elegance, and to me, this momentum of peace was nerve-wracking. I wondered to myself if I blended in with my own skinny jeans and healed black boots, or if they knew I was a fraud raised to disapprove of individuality, yet fighting those feelings of disapproval in every moment of my existence. How could I have known that the mood of the evening was an absolute indication of what was to come at the race tomorrow.
As I peeked out of the curtains the next morning, the sky was glorious with puffy white clouds and rays of sunshine. I slathered on a handful of sunscreen and belted a provisions belt around my waist, the attached plastic bottles filled with an energy drink. On my head I secured a San Francisco Giants hat to show my city spirit. I took a last glance in the mirror at my meaty body, wishing I had the courage to carry off the Wonder Woman costume I had envisioned myself wearing, but remembering the waitress on Halloween at a local cafe in my hometown who wore the said garb, and spent the entire time her hands were free of plates yanking up the sagging red and gold bodice. My mother’s face appeared before me again. Naked people, she intoned with disapproval.
I gazed out the window of my hotel room, and saw a parade of participants heading towards their designated starting points. From my vantage point, I could see a clown in full dress, red wig and striped suit, and a big painted smile. How better to start the race, then to receive a visual welcome from a childhood memory such as the circus. I safety pinned my bib number to my shirt, and headed downstairs.
Disks of an unidentifiable matter flew in a haphazard vertical pattern above the packed crowd in the street, as people cheered and called out to their friends as they herded themselves into the pre-designated corrals from which they were to start the race. A naked man, covered only by a bandanna wrapped around the black hair on his head, clutched the sides of his body and shivered, as he looked around presumably for his friends. Strangely enough, his nudity was not the threat I was originally apprehensive of. Instead, it enforced the vulnerability of every person running the race. It is a beautiful society we live in, where a lone, small boned man can stand naked in the street amongst a crowd energized by caffeine and energy drinks, and not be bothered by anyone.
There was a sense of return to childhood in the manner of people of all ages, from the Winnie the Pooh and Elmo costumes to the flowing skirts and princess tiaras. For perhaps the only day out of the entire year, people of all gender, creed, nationality and disposition, could perform an activity side by side and enjoy it.
As I walked towards Corral C, a light object came down and hit me on the head. I looked down at my feet. The object was a tortilla. For a millisecond, the memories of a childhood growing up in a small town filled with supremacists of varying degrees, I felt a sting as if I were the target of a racist joke. I looked about me again, at the crowd, a beautiful Seurat like vision of multi-colored dots making a myriad of faces, and shook the feeling off.
Entering the race felt like boarding an amusement park ride. There was an awning with a digital clock display, and a hamper with a sign that read Clothing. Only in an altruistic city like San Francisco is the shedding of clothing an ingénue idea to collect garments for the poor. My feet began to move, step after step, and increase in speed. Running at full speed beside me was a tall fellow in a wig and full rock star/robot regalia. His eyes were shaded by reflective aviator sunglasses, and his face was covered with full make up, lined lips with cheeks covered in bright pink. The long, flowing wig upon his face flew behind him like a cape, the crimped locks light as feathers upon the wind. I gave him a respectful “woot, woot,” and continued on.
A hill rose before me, covered with a wave of people. I pressed on upwards, as bands played on the sidewalks, people hanging out of their homes toasted the runners with drinks in hand, and an emcee’s voice carried over the loudspeakers, encouraging the participants up the steep hill. “That’s it,” a woman said as I reached the top. “That’s the worst of it.” I looked down and saw a gorgeous, sloping incline, and felt I had sprouted wings.
The miles began to tick by, and as I entered Golden Gate Park, I saw this city I had lived near for all of my life through different eyes. Dark clouds poured a most welcome, light mist upon my face, for sweat was coursing down the bodies of even those running completely naked. As I ran past the seventh mile marker, which was the last, a cheeky bystander held up a sign which read Way to Go! Only Eight Miles Left!
The white caps of the Pacific Ocean were now visible. I sprinted into a run as I made the turn towards the finish line, not wanting to get there faster than anyone, but to make my personal goal of finishing the best it could be. I had not a time in mind, but I had come this far, and I knew that finishing strong was how I wanted this race to end. My baseball cap blew off from the force of the mighty sea winds, and I grabbed it in my fist and continued dashing towards the line. As I crossed, I threw my hands up in the air and formed a peace sign.
Men dressed in drag, throes of people without clothes, so called normal couples, and beautifully fit twenty something year olds milled about on the other side of the finish line. The endorphins of running seemed to be coursing through the air, as smiles were plentiful and the brisk chill from the ocean was as cleansing to the lungs as a cold shower is to the body. A wagon with a sign asking for support for a local school sold pupusas, a thick corn tortilla stuffed with cheese and pork, and a delicacy from my father’s country. To me, the sign was truly a welcome wagon. I had not only completed my first race, but crossed over to a new way of seeing the people I share this world with.
If we exist on a macrocosmic level as well as a microcosmic level, the San Francisco Bay to Breakers race is one place where these points of existence gel. We are all humans, running in the same vein of time in which we are blessed to exist. Some will stagnate, some will dare to stop and force against the stream of people, shouting rules and curses upon those who are there to flow, who are not hurting anyone. Some will continue on, energized by the others who share their presence, who press on towards the same positive goal, and no matter when they cross the finish line, it is these people who have truly won the race.
About this Author
Liz R. Newman, Author of An Affinity for Shadows
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