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| Angelika/Mike Schilli |
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Michael As every year, the "Bay to Breakers" city run took place in May, and your esteemed narrator participated, continuing on a developing tradition. This has already been reported in the newsletter, but since one particular newsletter reader, whom I won't name here (Günter Speckhofer, the editor), recently asked again what "Bay to Breakers" actually means, here are the facts once more: It's a fun race from the San Francisco Bay in the east, across the city to the ocean in the west (Breakers are the incoming waves), with 70,000 people participating. Many compete in costumes or in groups, and the streets are closed off.
The old Rundbrief 06/1999 you can look up on the internet, by the way. This year, I ran at an easy pace and finished with a time of 01:25:37, placing 8,151st out of 52,356 runners who reached the finish line. 01:25:37 is still not impressive for 9 miles, but you have to account for a waiting time of about 15 minutes at the start line. That's how long it took for the crowd of 70,000 people to start moving from the spot where I was.
As always, the whole race is of course documented online. Race management has published the this link: Just type "Schilli" into the search box labeled "How'd I do?" and there you go. You can also see that Reuben Cheruiyot from Kenia was even faster: It took himt only 34 minutes and 54 seconds, and that landed him the number one spot.
Also, recently, I read a book by German Minister of Foreign Affairs Joschka Fischer, titled "Mein langer Lauf zu mir selbst", in which he boasts that in 1998, he ran the Hamburg marathon in 3:41:36. Now, a marathon is 26 miles, and I ran 9 miles, so this makes his 9 mile time, crunch, crunch, 01:03:01. What, the old man is faster than I am? Outrageous! Wait until I'm 50 ...
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