2006 May | Kathryn Hill

Each year is the annual Bay to Breakers 7.46-mile footrace in San Francisco. In true San Francisco spirit, large crowds of people walk behind the runners, wearing costumes, going nude, or pushing homemade floats. One offbeat tradition of the Bay to Breakers is the Breakers to Bay Salmon Run. Participants wear salmon suits and run the race in the opposite direction – like salmon swimming upstream – and yell “SPAWN!”

I joined the salmon this year and ran through the crowds wearing a fish costume, handing out high-fives, hugging friends who were running the race in the other direction, and taking pictures. Here is a salmon’s-eye view of the Bay to Breakers – my day as a fish.

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The salmon met before the race to make last-minute costume adjustments, drink coffee (it was 7:00 AM!) and eat bagels … with lox.

Sandwichgirl, fresh back in San Francisco from her third winter in Antarctica, is all smiles.

Before the race started, the salmon headed up to Alamo Square to the top of the Hayes Street Hill portion of the race.

Fish roe

Heading towards the Hayes Street Hill

We watched the first wave of runners go by.

The salmon waited patiently for all the “serious” runners to pass.

When the “fun” groups started coming up the hill, the salmon jumped in the crowd and started their upstream swim, yelling “SPAWN!”

I got in the rear of the group and followed the salmon.

The crowd was very happy to see us – lots of people laughed and cheered at us.

This is our group heading down the Hayes Street Hill. Notice the size of the crowd in the upper left of the photo. That’s only a small fraction of the actual crowd, estimated at 65,000 total.