Posted: January 20, 2004

Athletics: Race Directing (Part 2): Naked Runners & Flying Tortillas

By JAMES RAIA

It's common knowledge that the Bay to Breakers, formerly the country's largest road race, remains widely popular. The annual 12km in San Francisco appeals to elite competitors and to those who put on running shoes once a year.

But just prior to the 1998 event, the San Francisco Examiner, the race’s former title sponsor, surprised more than a few followers when it hired a new race director, Abby English. She had no previous running event management experience.

Orchestrating a parade of more than 80,000 runners through the streets of San Francisco is no easy task, and it wasn't only English's responsibility.

And even someone of vast experience would have difficulty tackling some of the issues facing Bay to Breakers.

English, then age 34, had prior work experience in the magazine and bicycle touring industries, primarily watched her first Bay to Breakers with the retiring race director acting as her mentor.

But after witnessing the race from the media truck, English quickly realized she would face a daunting task preparing for the 1999 race.

The spectrum of her challenge included overcoming three diverse but important issues: the implementation of an electronic registration system, curtailing the increasing number of naked participants and discovering a way to stop the recent phenomenon of tortilla tossing at the start of the race.

"We encouraged runners to send us e-mails after the race," English recalled. "We got so many, it blew up our web server. We got letters, too. We got letters about the naked runners and we got a letter from one woman who suffered an eye injury when she was hit by a flying tortilla at the start of the race."

The event's woes were severe, but not any more pertinent than the concerns facing other events -- like the organizing committee of the Chester (Calif.) Classic Fourth of 4th of July Fun Run.

For the past 25 years, the volunteer staff of the idyllic, small city event has presented the simple run as a part of the daylong holiday celebration. A field of a few hundred participate each year.

In one recent edition, the city's main street was closed by one policeman, who parked his vehicle in the middle of the main street and turned on the flashing lights for a few minutes.

The race field progressed from a community park onto to asphalt main road for perhaps 200 yards. The course then continued on dirt and gravel trails until an old pick-up truck in the middle of the trail marked the turnaround. The flatbed of the truck also served as the event's only aid station.

But even such a delightful small-city affair has had to alter its finish-line proceedings. After returning to the park and running through a finishing chute, one woman asked runners to tear off the bottom of their race numbers while another used the "tongue-depressor" method to correspond a number for each runner's finish.

When the finish area had dwindled to a few sporadic finishers, I complimented the women for their finishing-line methods and asked how they compiled results boards.

One of the women leaned toward me and whispered, "We have a secret place where they’re doing the results. We keep it that way because even in a small race like this people want to know everything right away.

"The runners used to crowd in the results area and the workers couldn’t do their jobs. Some runners just wanted to know everything right away. So now we have to hide the results area. The volunteers are done a lot faster that way."

(End of part #2)

Read Part#1 in this series at: rw_news_20040106_Raia.html.

Read Part#3 in this series at: rw_news_20040120_Raia.html.

Posted with the permission of James Raia. Vist his website at: /www.byjamesraia.com.

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