Bay2Breakers or Bust… or Maybe Both

By Erin Bush

Insert byline – By Erin Bush
I had more fun than any one person should be allowed to have between 6 am and 5 pm on a Sunday. Once a year, the sun comes out for the annual Bay2Breakers race that stretches from the Bay Bridge to Ocean Beach, a seven-or-so mile run across the fair city of San Francisco. Literally thousands of athletes [and non-athletes] take this race very seriously and train for long periods of time to compete for the $25,000 cash prize. And there are literally thousands of folks who take dressing up in costume and walking the streets in a drunken stupor from sunrise to sunset very seriously. There are more crazy costumes, and not to mention nudity, than any human should experience on a Sunday. Tradition and fun run deep with Bay2Breakers, one group even went as the 101 Dalmations in honor of its 101st Anniversary. Clever, right?
 
Our group went as animals.  We had two tigers, white and orange, a giraffe, a couple of flamingoes, an owl, a monkey, honey badger, a few others, and I went as a lion. I have great curly hair that can frizz out 80’s style which is conducive to a lion’s mane. Thanks, gene pool. I am also proud to say I did the stripes on both tigers, a zebra and some whiskers on a cat, as well as my own face paint, which naturally, was amazing. Last year, we went as troll dolls, with bright colorful hair and our own little touch to make each troll unique. I was a hipster troll, a friend was a bride troll, we may have had a vampire troll. All kinds.
 
I loved my costume. I made a sweet, braided lion tail out of yarn and pinned it so some tiny skivvies. I frizzed out my curls about as much as I could. I then proceeded to paint the rest of me with a tawny brown, adding whispy white paint to my chest and belly to look like the under-belly of a lion. My own little touch and nuance to this and last year’s costumes were that I was topless. My mom and dad are shocked – this is the first time they’re hearing about it.
 
Naked men asked to take pictures with me! People really, really like boobs. Other topless girls were coming up to me, screaming that they’d found someone else as daring and confident, and giving big hugs.  It was a spectacle to say the least.
 
Luckily, I only saw a couple of folks that I knew. One of which included a bit of a crush, whom I instantly got shy around and awkwardly covered up. Thousands of people staring at my fun-bags and I suddenly get shy – way to show confidence. I had a guy chase me up a hill [where I was trying to get cell phone service] so that he could introduce himself. That resulted in my first Craigslist Missed Connection! Which, as you know, has always been a dream of mine.
 
After my CMC encounter, I finally connected with my friends at one of the local bars. At some point between the park, my CMC, and the bar I managed to get a shirt – someone else’s shirt. It is a blue sweatshirt that says “Laguna” across the chest with the arms ripped off. Classy. I was stoked to see my friends at the bar and get my hands on some grub – I’d had a lot to drink and next to no food. While at the bar, somewhere between bumping into an old classmate and a handful of French fries, some poor bastard walked by our table. I like to think that I also winked at him, but I think I merely flashed him, thereby adding one more to the 9000 or so people who saw my boobs that morning. As my friend said, “I made his effin LIFE.”

Doing my part, one ta-ta at a time.