Bay to Breakers... Sort Of

More like: 4th&King to Mission to Spear to Mission to 9th Street (Actual Race Route) to Breakers to Muni to Bay to 9th Street. Is the short version.

Long version: I took the special Bay to Breakers CalTrain, as intended, up to the city for the race. The first problem was the train ended up running 35 minutes late. With 15 minutes to race time. At approx 1.5 miles from the start line (well, the way i ended up going). With a strained hamstring (not great for sprinting like a bat out of hell to starting lines in crowds of 100,000+ people). With a queue for the bathroom. So that would be about 6 or 7 problems, actually...
Anyway, the mad dash following the bathroom break led to a series of frustrated attempts to gain access to the route. And when I finally got to the actual starting point for runners, about 4 minutes after the whistle had gone off, I found it full of... WALKERS. And (horror) JOGGING STROLLERS. And people throwing tortillas through the air like frisbees (over 1 million thrown this morning, apparently), which I still don't understand the reasoning behind, especially given that the hundreds of homeless people just a block or two outside the route might have in fact enjoyed eating those tortillas. But oh well. I was stuck, unable to move backwards or forwards, and certainly not able to run.
Eventually the crush began ooooozing in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean, with me hopping up and down and in circles, trying to keep my hamstring from seizing up. And when it dawned on me that it had indeed taken a full 20 minutes to go exactly 2 blocks, I decided that, since my goal of getting a decent time and making the top 10,000 runners was at this point a very impossible thing without a teleporter, difinative action was called for. Namely, running. Which I did. Inching out of the throng, and up Mission Street, instead of Howard with the stand-still crowd. So I had a gloriously empty first few miles (which I'd actually already run to get to where I'd just been from the train station, but oh well), being cheered on by homeless and high-fived by hookers (who might have been lost race participants...?). All well and good for the moment, but the fact that I was not running the actual course meant that I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I'd really done the whole thing, as in, all the miles of the actual intended course. Which I did later on, but for now, back to the story.
I rejoined the course at 9th and Mission, which because I'd essentially hopped ahead was a comfortable number of people, all running. Hayes Hill was that much easier, with the extra breathing room, making it a leisurely uphill clip while enjoying a medly of disco tunes and of course the sights: various costumed runners, various naked runners, "Through the Hayes Optometry", and a group dressed as paper mache salmon with bright red eggs on their noses making their way DOWN the hill against the flow of traffic (ha ha).
The rest of the course was uneventful and lovely; cool SF weather + blocked off streets + Golden Gate Park + running = happy Antonia. The hamstring held, and I arrived at the Great Highway and the Breakers feeling like I could have done the distance double (which is good, as I have a half marathon in three weeks...). After dipping my shoes in the Pacific, a water break, t-shirt collection, and a free bread clip from sponsor Oroweat, I took the Muni Bay to Breakers Express (which took as long as it would have taken me to crawl the distance upside-down with taffy on my hands) back to the starting point and, you guessed it, ran out to the Bay at Embarcadero, dipped my shoes in, and ran up Howard to 9th Street, the leg I'd mirrored earlier.
And now I've done the Bay to Breakers. Which means I don't EVER HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN. Give me a nice old-fashioned 5000 participant half-Ironman triathlon, thank you very much.

P.S. If none of this makes any sense whatsoever to you, either I must appologize for being a bad writer (which I do) or I will provide the website to the Bay to Breakers so that you can read up on what I'm talking about if you're unfamiliar with the event: www.baytobreakers.com