Gliding and Bouncing in the Bay to Breakers Race
By Daniel Brockman

James Koskei wins Bay to Breakers, 2003 Photo by Linda Cunningham

It didn't seem like a Bay to Breakers morning. Where was the fog? I could see farther than across the street. The weather wasn't traditionally chilly, and I didn't shiver at all. The famous Sunset District Deep Freeze Breeze took the day off.

I walked into Golden Gate Park at 47th and Fulton about 8:20am, and passed the archery targets and the golf course on my left. A fire engine parked near the golf course for first aid duty. I came to the main road and turned right, crossed the road and perched on the curb. A half dozen motorcycle cops roared by counterracewise and disappeared. Two skinny scaffold towers (holding video cameras?) were a hundred yards up the road. The old windmill was down the road a few yards on the other side. Perhaps forty or fifty people were hanging around waiting for the race to come by.

The sky was bluest blue. The cypress canopy couldn't quite hide the bright yellow sunlight. There was little noise other than a few birds and nearly no activity.

The low-frequency whoop of a helicopter rotor broke the silence, and a few seconds later the giant dragonfly appeared overhead, and another of these airborne heralds followed up not far behind the first. The race was near.

A police motorcycle appeared coming down the road just ahead and to the right of a tall slender man who in seconds would become the victor. How could anyone run like that? He glided down the road without the least bounce. He passed just a few feet from me, intent concentrated power slicing through the air, clearly working but also clearly cruising. He seemed quite silent. Then he was gone somewhere in the distance.

For two seconds then, the world seemed quieter than ever.

I turned around and looked up the road and two more slender gliders came toward me. Then a few more men, followed by a gaggle of them bunched up together. After an interval came a small woman and a few more men, then a group of women. A brief interval and there was another woman. Ten people followed, then twenty more, and then yet more, and so the numbers grew, and the runners began to bounce.

The first centipede came by, linked up with a banner saying "Microsoft", and one of the runners hollering, "Go! Go! Go!"

A few hundred souls came by in the next five minutes or so. There were a few funny hats, but no real costumes. Then came the grand non-costume as three men, with a degree of bounce not displayed by previous runners, came by surprisingly fast and completely naked.

It was a grand day.

--end--
448 words.

[ Home ]