Bay to Breakers is a foot race of 50,000 people dressed in ridiculous costumes representing American pop-culture taking place on the third Sunday of May. The outfit depends on participants’ imagination and ingenuity. There are packs of French fries, chickens, hamburgers, pandas, cats, and mice, famous movie or cartoon characters, women with attached beards and moustaches and men wearing seductive female underwear, and some racers may wear no clothes at all.
Thousands of amusing creatures cover the distance of approximately 12 km or 7,5 miles from the foot of Howard Street to Ocean Beach, in other words from bay to breakers. Whereas some really do run, others walk quite slowly. Those who are not going to participate in the race may observe extraordinary racers from Golden Gate Park’s Panhandle. The foot race was introduced in San Francisco in 1912 to cheer up its residents who were enduring a lengthy restoration process after the earthquake which caused a lot of damage to the city in 1906. Since 1912, the foot race has been held annually in mid-May. In 1986, it was recorded as world’s largest foot race. The event is considered to be the oldest one in the history of San Francisco.
