No Bay to Breakers for me this year

I’m a lit­tle sad to say it, but with only twelve hours left until the reg­is­tra­tion dead­line for Bay to Break­ers it looks like I won’t be run­ning it this year. Look­ing at my mea­ger bank bal­ance I have three option: gro­ceries, cat food, or Bay to Break­ers reg­is­tra­tion. Of those I can pick any two.

It’s also a lit­tle longer than I should be run­ning, but after all, that is what race day is for. As slow as I’ve been going as I’ve start­ed to get back into the swing of things, I know I could fin­ish. I’d put even odds that I could fin­ish in under nine­ty min­utes and get my name in the paper for being one of the top 10,000 fin­ish­ers. If it weren’t for start­ing line con­ges­tion I’d be cer­tain I could do it

So I’m look­ing far­ther down the cal­en­dar at events that could be my first race back. A week after Bay to Break­ers is the Prac­tice Dipsea Run—but that’s almost as long as Bay to Break­ers and instead of the meek Hayes Street hill climb there’s a climb first to 700 feet above the start­ing point, back down almost to the orig­i­nal ele­va­tion and then up over a 1360 foot rise on Mount Tamal­pais. It’s a trail run, which means it’s prob­a­bly bet­ter for my knees, yet much more chal­leng­ing even in the occa­sion­al flats.

Two weeks out is the Mis­sion Bay 5K with the Dol­phin South End Run­ners, a group I was a mem­ber of back in the day. The Mis­sion Bay 5K replaces the Mis­sion Rock 5K, a favorite of mine just because it was in my neigh­bor­hood. The Mis­sion Bay 5K is pret­ty much in the ‘hood as well and being a 5K there isn’t any ques­tion about whether I can finish.

So there are oth­er events I’ll be able to get into in the next cou­ple of weeks, all for a fifth to a tenth the reg­is­tra­tion fee of Bay to Break­ers. While Bay to Break­ers is a fun event, it’s not real­ly a great race event. Of the cours­es I’m look­ing for­ward to reac­quaint­ing myself with this year, the US Half and Bridge to Bridge are more what I’m look­ing for­ward to. Sad­ly the Cable Car Chase, eas­i­ly San Fran­cis­co’s best run­ning event, was dis­con­tin­ued a few years back.

And with two months to get ready, I could the­o­ret­i­cal­ly do the San Fran­cis­co Triathlon at Trea­sure Island (for­mer­ly the Trea­sure Island Triathlon). If I can get com­fort­able in the water I’m sure I could fin­ish the sprint dis­tance event. I’m def­i­nite­ly get­ting ahead of myself here, but there are a lot of options com­ing up.