Michael On May 16th, as on every third Sunday in May, the traditional Bay-To-Breakers city race took place in San Francisco. The name of the twelve-kilometer race comes from the fact that the runners start at the shores of the San Francisco Bay (made famous by the song "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay"), run across the entire city, past a multitude of Victorian houses, sprint through Golden Gate Park, and finally arrive exhausted at the ocean with its breaking waves (Breakers).

San Francisco is famously located at the tip of a peninsula, with the Bay on its right and the Pacific Ocean on its left. Twelve kilometers is, of course, a breeze for reasonably active athletes, but the race owes its fame to the amusing antics of runners who dress up, and some old '68ers even like to run naked, although that's technically prohibited by the police, but who cares about what's prohibited in San Francisco!

Don't worry, our friend Anthony and I ran in normal sports attire, and we lined up with 73,000 other runners at the starting line. At exactly eight o'clock in the morning, the starting gun was fired (Figure 2). In the front row stood the qualified runners, who were allowed to start immediately, and then the crowd slowly began to move. Very slowly! It took a full half hour before Anthony and I could finally start. Angelika, who had positioned herself a few hundred yards further to take photos, was already wondering where we were, but quickly pressed the shutter, and the result is shown in Figure 1. If you subtract the waiting time from our official result time of 1:53:36 (if you don't believe it, you can check it on... the Internet, you end up with approximately one hour and 20 minutes, which is not exactly world-class for 12 kilometers, but it's quite okay for a hilly course. I finished in 21,643rd place, unfortunately not enough for a medal, as the winner, the Kenyan Lazarus Nyakeraka, only needed 34 minutes and 11 seconds -- but he didn't have to wait as long at the start!

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Units of measurement and weight
  	Automated Telephone Services
  	Germophobia
  	U.S. Store Chains
  	Guns and violence
  	New Car
  	Shopping On the Internet
  	Soccer in America
  	Point Reyes
  	AOL buys Netscape.

  
  

• More topics you might be interested in:

  	Units of measurement and weight
  	Automated Telephone Services
  	Germophobia
  	U.S. Store Chains
  	Guns and violence
  	New Car
  	Shopping On the Internet
  	Soccer in America
  	Point Reyes
  	AOL buys Netscape.