SAN FRANCISCO “”mdash; They came to the City by the Bay wearing
grass skirts and coconut bras, with “Sons of Westwood”
and “The Mighty Bruins” on their lips.
Preceded by a tiki torch and followed by a spear-carrier, they
joined over 60,000 of the running, the walking, the costumed and
the inebriated Sunday morning, ready to participate in a proud Bay
Area tradition in its 95th year.
When I arrived to run in Bay to Breakers, the
seven-and-a-half-mile race that stretches across San Francisco, I
wasn’t looking for Bruin Runners, the UCLA running club.
But the sound of an 8-clap over the hoopla that accompanies this
foot race cum street party drew me to them like a homing
beacon.
Decked out in islander costumes, leis and face paint, these 16
UCLA students bounced in eager anticipation of their first Bay to
Breakers.
“One person said to use loincloths, but we decided that
would be pretty bad,” said Aaron Senter, a third-year physics
student and president of the club, explaining their choice of
costume. “No one really wants to wear just a
loincloth.”
Well, some people do. To the uninitiated, let’s be clear
about one thing: Bay to Breakers is not your average race.
It does draw its share of serious runners. But to many of the
thousands who show up, Bay to Breakers is about good,
old-fashioned, beach-ball-bouncing,
throw-tortillas-at-your-neighbor fun. Bands blast live music from
street stages. Residents line the route like parade-watchers.
People run and walk dressed in costumes and pushing beer kegs.
Drink ““ and I don’t mean Powerade ““ flows freely.
Some show up naked. That’s right: Stark, raving naked.
But back to the Bruins. They had tied themselves together in
single file to form what is known in running lingo as a
“centipede.” Ben Cox, a second-year physiological
sciences student, led the centipede with a tiki torch.
Adam Skory, a fourth-year linguistics student, brought up the
rear brandishing a spear.
As the race started, the Bruin Runners readily picked up on one
important race phenomenon: alcohol.
“We have our Gatorade,” said Senter, hoisting up a
bottle of yellow liquid, “which isn’t all
Gatorade.”
Verl Siththananban, a post-doctorate student in biophysics and a
native of England, compared Bay to Breakers to “a bunch of
blokes in a pub.”
“Except they’re in the street,” he pointed
out. “And running.”
The Bruins drew their share of attention. Skory jabbed random
runners with his spear. The group traded high-fives with a man in a
fat ballerina suit. And a woman dressed as a police officer intoned
through a bullhorn: “No violations for men in
coconuts.”
When they hit a monster of a hill on Hays Street, they serenaded
a walker wearing a USC sweatshirt with chants of, “Take off
that red shirt!”
But the Trojan supporter simply raised his arms and danced to
their beat, then gave the Bruins a thumbs-up.
This briefly led me to wonder: Does the good spirit of Bay to
Breakers transcend sports rivalry?
As if in answer to my question, Bruin Runners next had a run-in
with the Stanford mascot and a gaggle of Stanford student
security.
Normally, I wouldn’t consider the UCLA-Stanford rivalry to
be so venomous, but this tree proved me wrong. When the Bruins
barraged him with a thunderous 8-clap, the tree retaliated with a
stream of expletives.
Then, with twig-fueled mischief on its mind, the tree grabbed
the Bruins’ binding cord, threatening to throw the centipede
into confusion. But Skory fended it off with a few spear jabs, and
the Bruins were off, laughing and hooting.
The tree responded to my request for comment with some words I
won’t reprint here.
When I caught up with Bruin Runners again, they were closing in
on the three-mile mark, but not before winding through a group of
naked runners. The Bruins seemed nonplussed; the trick to dealing
with nudity, they said, is to take it in stride.
“I felt like I was in an anatomy class,” remarked
Janelle Kulik, a third-year psychobiology student, as they left the
runners-in-the-buff behind.
The Bruin Runners and I had to part ways at the third mile. But
I caught up with them at the end, grass skirts askew and minus a
couple of coconut bras ““ for the males anyway.
They didn’t know whether they were the first centipede to
finish (they weren’t), but declared they had shattered tape
when they crossed the finishing line. (“It might have been
warning tape,” one of them conceded.)
Nevertheless, “This was an outstanding moment in UCLA
history,” said Cox, right up there with 99 NCAA titles and
John Wooden.
Okay, maybe not that high. But it didn’t matter to them.
They were done, and they were content. And they’d be back.
“We’re going to turn this into a tradition,” Cox
promised me. “We’re breaking the tape next
year.”
And then they left, tiki torch and all, heading into a sunny San
Francisco afternoon.
E-mail the Notorious EIC at
cproctor@media.ucla.edu.