“What are you talking about? We don’t need to train for that! “Ah!” Dick replied, “It’s the importance of a false goal.”
Dick and, I, in our mid-thirties, began jogging during 1975. Twice a week in the late afternoon, we’d leave the Berkeley Y, where we’d lifted weights during the past two years, and walk to the nearby UC Berkeley track.
When we started, we struggled to complete a quarter-mile. Slowly, we ran longer. First, a half-mile, and then our first mile.
By 1977, we were doing two miles in less than eight minutes a mile and had joined two other runners from the Y. One of them urged us to run in the ‘Bay to Breakers,’ the annual, legendary 7.5-mile run through San Francisco. He’d first run it in the late ’50s when there were four hundred entrants. He assured us we could finish it if we trained.
We signed up for the race and began training.
Dick, a former swimmer at Cal, was a serious trainer. I had to follow. We ran three miles, and then four. We started doing wind sprints, racing all-out for a quarter mile, then a quarter mile recovery walk, and then another all-out quarter sprint. We took the wind sprints up to a half a mile, then three quarters, while keeping our recovery walk to a quarter-mile.
After almost a year of training, I was in the best condition of my life. We were ready.
The race started at 8:00 am on a May Sunday. When we left Berkeley at 6:30a, it was chilly but sunny, and the weather prediction was good. We hadn’t checked out what the race involved–beyond learning that it started on Folsom Street near the Ferry Building on the San Francisco Bay. As we drove off an exit ramp of the Bay Bridge, we looked down at the massive crowd. Tens of thousands of people were on the streets below us. “Oh,” Dick said, “This is a big giggle!”
Courtesy, Mapmyrun.blog
Entering the crowd, we were engulfed by runners. Halted by the impenetrable mass jamming the streets, we couldn’t get near the official starting line. I saw runners in costumes—a teddy bear, Batman, an angel, and a group of rabbits, among others.
Suddenly, a roar went through the crowd. The race must have started even though it was many minutes before we could begin to move … actually, to shuffle. Dick and I made efforts at running, but it was hopeless. There was no open ground, just the press of endless bodies, all more ambling than racing.
Dick was right. The race was ‘a big giggle.’
We “runners” moved slowly down funky Folsom Street, cheered on by apartment dwellers from their windows. At times, the runners shouted strange noises—“Oooohhhhh” or “NNNNYYYYY”—joyfully eerie tribal calls.
We were moving so slowly that I could see every building clearly, observing block after block of the city as I never had before. This was FUN!
We crossed Market Street and began the steep climb up Hayes Street–labeled “Heartbreak Hill” by previous racers. But there was no possibility of heartbreak now, merely a pleasant uphill stroll with runners behind and runners ahead, and as far as I could see.
Neighbors and spectators cheering (courtesy, Pinterest)
More neighbors and spectators cheered us on. I saw more costumed runners—a wild mélange—skimpy clothes, a giant magenta bird, glitter-laden ladies, and 18th-century British soldiers, to name just a few. At the top of the hill, spectators handed out water in paper cups as rock music blasted from nearby speakers. Then we went down the hill and into Golden Gate Park, ambling in the glorious morning sun, to the end at Ocean Beach on the Pacific.
Finishing, Dick and I were elated and not at all tired. The ocean looked gorgeous, and the runners were exuberant. I felt as if I’d participated in an ancient pagan ritual with a huge, boisterous crowd surging through the streets of a fabled city.
I knew we’d do the race again.
Six months later, as we walked out to run on a grey November day, Dick announced, “Well, time to start our Bay-to-Breakers training.” “What Bay-to-Breakers training?” I asked. “What are you talking about? We don’t need to train for that! It’s not a race; it’s a walk.” “Ah,” Dick replied, “It’s the importance of a false goal.”
So we trained again…and again…and again. For years, long after we’d ceased running in the race, we’d do it. Train for our annual months of “Bay-to-Breakers training.”
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Editor’s note: Bay to Breakers 2020, which was to have been run on Sunday, May 31, has been rescheduled for Sunday, September 20. In making the date-change announcement, John Kane, CEO of Capstone Event Group, wrote: “This event was started in 1912 to unify a recovering San Francisco community following a devastating earthquake. For more than a century, it has represented the strength and resilience of the Bay area, while serving as a celebration of diversity and community for participants and spectators alike.”
