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By Larry Ullrich, SCNA Board Member
During the first part of the year the out of area sponsors thought nudity to be negative publicity and tried to put the brakes on nudity and drinking. Every year they say it will be outlawed, but this year, again, they took no action toward enforcing it. While 12K Bay to Breakers is a serious race with several thousand runners vying for $40,000 in prize money and the prestige of the fastest time (33 minutes, a new record). But most of the 12,000 participants lag behind and see it as kind of a “Mardi Gras/Do Dah” parade with festive costumes and nude runners/walkers parading from the wharf across the length of the city to the Pacific Ocean. I saw one group dressed as a centipede snaking its way down the street. A family came dressed as Star Trek characters; there were several Dolly Partons (some bare breasted). We heard one man ran the entire race backwards.
The nude group organized as “Bare to Breakers” boldly wore their B2B yellow hats. We removed our clothes near the starting location just before the gun went off and ran as a group at first, although we separated early into smaller units as different people went at different paces. The excitement was high, and there were many new faces this year. We met nudists from every occupation including teachers, lawyers, nurses, and many college students.
Almost everyone had a camera or video cams, and we were constantly being stopped by onlookers – and others in the race – to have our picture taken with them, memorializing the moment they stopped to talk to a naked person on the streets of San Francisco. These people – many with their families - liked to give me “high-fives,” and many said “you guys (nudes) make Bay to Breakers.” The kids did not seem embarrassed about the nude forms passing by, and they gave us plenty of smiles and waves.
Bands and street musicians were everywhere along the path also, and people served us free water and other power snack food at almost every corner.
I saw a small group of long-haired young nude people standing and watching the parade just after we passed Haight-Ashbury near Golden Gate Park. I thought: the hippy days are still alive!
An article that evening by Sean Maher in the Oakland Tribune stated there were no complaints of nudity and only six people were arrested for intoxication, about half the number from 2008.
It was hard to believe that I could actually walk nude down a city in front of thousands of cheering spectators and not get a ticket or be thrown in jail. . I cannot wait to do it again next year.
The San Francisco Bay to Breakers race always has a “Mardi Gras” feel to it, and this year’s event was no exception. People came costumed (or body painted) in everything imaginable. Larry said he was quite the celebrity walking the course. He said both nude and clothed participants, and others watching the race curbside, all wanted to have a picture taken with “the naked man” and Larry happily agreed. He brought back quite a gallery of eclectic images of which those above are only a representative sample.