Bay to Breakers with West Valley Track Club
Bay to Breakers is the oldest continuously running footrace in the world. Throughout its 100+ year history, the race has picked up some pretty weird traditions. The most famous of these are the costumes, which this year ranged from Jon Snow to Pokemon to, well, nothing at all. The event starts with a tortilla toss, which is exactly what it sounds like, and a group of runners dressed as salmon attempt to run the race in reverse. It’s a blast, and is really more of an all-are-welcome parade than a race, which explains why around 50,000 people sign up every year.
My favorite race tradition is the centipede, where 13 people run the course tied together (and yes, the name precedes the movie.). The centipede sounds like a clumsier variant of the 3-legged race, but the setup is actually conducive to fast running. Centipede body segments (runners) are connected by 3 feet of bungee cord, leaving plenty of room to stride. Each year, a few teams run below a 5:30 pace.
My track club (West Valley) is big. We fielded 3 teams this year, one women’s and two men’s. I ran with the mens B-pede last year, but was bumped up to the A-pede this year. This pede is made up of West Valley’s fastest men, including former D1 runners, sub-4:20 milers, and an Olympic Trials Qualifier. Needless to say, I was out of my league.
Of the 15 runners in each team, only 13 are tied together. The remaining two are backups, called floaters. Floaters run alongside the centipede, and swap in for anyone who isn’t able to continue. I was one of our team’s floaters, and my friend Michael (same Michael who ran The Oakland Marathon) was the other.
Now, the challenge with being a floater is that you have to keep up. No one’s going to drop in the first 2 miles — to be useful to the team, you need to stay with them up and over the 200-foot Hayes Street Hill at mile 2, then hang with them as long as possible. This was going to be difficult — I was the slowest member of the team, and while slow runners who are connected to the centipede get pulled along by the bungee cord in front of them, slow floaters have to keep up without help.
The first two miles were *fast*. Way faster than I would have started this race on my own. But I was determined to stay with the centipede until I was too exhausted to continue, so I swallowed my doubts and pushed forwards. It helped that there were so many distractions, like determining whether the 13 man line was going to pass a runner on the left or the right, and then communicating this to the runner.
I fell back a few paces on the dreaded Hayes Street Hill, but was able to catch up by the time we crested. At this point though, I was feeling pretty bad. I had been running near my 5k effort level, and, well, we had just hit the 5k mark.
At that moment, my teammate David called for me to sub in. My first thought was “oh crap.” This wasn’t good timing; I was already really tired. But this was my job. Also, I knew that once I was latched in I would be pulled along by the pede, making the pace more sustainable.
David unhooked himself, and I attached myself to the runner in front of him, my friend Nate. Another runner clipped in behind me. Almost immediately after attaching myself, I felt the pull of the runner behind me, and in turn the rope in front of me went taught. Nate was pulling me, and I was pulling the guy behind me. This happened to me last year, and it’s neither an easy nor an efficient way to run. Nate called out for the Kevin, our frontrunner, to change positions, moving between me and the guy behind me. This was a really astute move — with a strong runner like Kevin behind me, I was no longer pulling anyone, and Nate was pulling only me.
The race was a blur from here forwards. I remember people shouting “bump” whenever we crossed a speed bump, and I remember trying repeatedly to catch up to Nate, only to have him move further ahead, tightening the line once again. Being pulled is strange. When you push your legs to move a bit faster, there isn’t much feedback in your speed. Instead, you just feel the tension around your harness loosen a bit.
I stopped looking at my watch, since the pace would only freak me out. Later, I found out that our uphill mile through the park was at a 5:30 pace, and our final 2.5 miles averaged just a few seconds over 5. I beat my previous course record by 4 minutes, and Strava claims I PR’d in every distance from the 2-mile to the 10k.
Of course, these “personal” records are disingenuous. Nate was pulling me for most of the race, and this boosted my pace by 10–20 seconds per mile. So while this doesn’t count as a PR, it was pretty neat to feel what it’s like to run this fast. It was a bit like test test-driving a Tesla after years of driving a Honda Fit.
We finished in 40:15, 20 seconds behind the lead centipede and 10 seconds off of the West Valley record. Somewhere between the cool-down and our post-race celebration, I realized that this was the most unique race I’ve ever run, and was actually a lot of fun — type 2 fun, that is. When else will I get to bound through the streets of San Francisco, literally supported by my team?
