Bay to Breakers

I got home late last night from San Francisco.

I went out to run the famous/infamous moving frat party, otherwise known as the Bay to Breakers. That was just one 'exclamation point' part of a beautifully written weekend visiting one of my oldest and bestest friends (since 3rd grade!) named Christi. She and her husband Scott (my trail running Guru and Boston marathon partner) have an eight month old daughter named Sophie, who is of course the real reason I go visit anymore (because she is always changing, and naturally Christi and I never do - ha!), but everything else was frosting on the cake.

Christi and Soph and I enjoyed some quality girl time while Scott was off in Reno running some brutal 50 miler (he's an Ultra dude) on Saturday. When he runs a 50 miler with 20,000 vertical feet of climbing, then he is suitably exhausted to run on pace with me the next day. Of course the pace I'm referring to is "costume pace" because he and I were identically dressed as Mai Tais, complete with full body foam tiki cup suit complete with sliced orange and poking out straw, wigs (mine long and pink, his long dreds), and a drink umbrella as a hat.

We had to be up early to make it to the start with the other 60,000 runners. The start area is awesome, the Rio-Carnival of races...with tortillas flying like saucers everywhere, music blaring, and inflatable beach balls bopping all over the costumed crowd. At first I felt a bit conspicuous as a Mai Tai, but that quickly wore off, especially as the "Bare to Breakers" crowd next to me found ways to creatively string their numbers to themselves with yarn before losing their clothes. This was admittedly shocking at first (the only naked man I see anymore is my 7 yr old son) but soon enough it blended into a new (albeit warped) form of normal that lasted for 12 kilometers. I saw some awesome costumes...my favorite being a group dressed up as salmon, running the whole course backwards. I saw a huge group of Elvises, that Scott smartly renamed in plural form, "Elvi." I saw a family dressed as the Incredibles, including baby Dash in a stroller. Some groups were running together, pulling floats behind them! I saw enough creativity, fun and attitude to propel me through the miles, even with a sweltering hot mai tai suit that hit mid calf and prohibited a full stride.

The frat party theme was fully realized when Scott and I realized that we neglected to bring our ID's, which we needed to get into the beer gardens at the "Footstock" concert immediately after the finish, and we had to "pass back" our friend's ID's just like we were undergrads again. Christi and I actually do look alike, when I have pink hair. (otherwise hers is dark and lovely and mine is dishwatery, this troubled me in 5th grade, but I'm over it now, mostly). We sat in the sun (like a couple of mai tais) and drank keg beer, listened to music, and played with Sophie and another friend's adorable little boy named Stone. It was one of those beautiful afternoons, sunny outside and sunny on the inside, that feels so good that it sticks in the laminated pages of your memory album and doesn't even need a caption.

Remind me that I need to go on more adventures.