Bay to Breakers: Half Race, Half Party

Bay Curious

KQED

History, Society & Culture, Places & Travel

4.9 • 999 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Bay to Breakers in San Francisco is much more than just an annual race. The event has become notorious for its party-like atmosphere, with thousands of people running the 7.5 mile route in wild costumes, or wearing absolutely nothing at all. With its 110+ year history in the city, how did Bay to Breakers go from an ordinary race to a kind of festival-on-foot? Reporter Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman chases down the answer and explores the event's highs and lows on this week's episode. Additional Reading: Bay to Breakers Is Part Race, Part Parade and Classic San Francisco Read a transcript of this episode Sign up for our newsletter Take our audience survey Enter our Sierra Nevada Brewing Company monthly trivia contest Check out our new Bay Curious book Your support makes KQED podcasts possible. You can show your love by going to https://kqed.org/donate/podcasts This story was reported by Azul Dahlstrom-Eckman. Bay Curious is made by Olivia Allen-Price, Amanda Font, Christopher Beale and Brendan Willard. Additional support from Pauline Bartolone, Cesar Saldana, Jen Chien, Katie Sprenger, Jasmine Garnett, Carly Severn, Jenny Pritchett and Holly Kernan.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	From K-QED.
0:02.0	The year was 2019, and today's question-asker, Andrew Thomas of El Sabrante was running
0:10.0	in beta-breakers for the very first time. That's the annual race across San Francisco.
0:15.5	The person I was kind of next to lined up next to, at the start of the race, got completely
0:19.8	nude with no shoes on and I was like, oh oh I'm going to smoke this person.
0:23.4	Think again Andrew.
0:25.1	And they took off and I couldn't even keep up with him for a quarter mile and they just
0:29.3	yeah did really well.
0:30.6	Welcome to Beta Breakers.
0:32.4	Perhaps the only foot race in America where you can get beaten by a naked person, someone
0:37.3	wearing a banana costume, and a gaggle of 15 runners who are literally tied together.
0:44.0	I speak from experience because that's exactly what happened to me one year,
0:47.1	and I've still got questions for that naked person about chafing.
0:50.4	Anyway, running in the race got Andrew thinking.
0:53.0	I just want to know more about the history of beta breakers.
0:56.0	When did it get so wacky?
0:57.0	When did costumes start getting introduced, you know, there's many races all over the country.
1:02.0	Why did this one get so uniquely San Francisco?
1:05.7	Today on Bay Curious, we're delving into the long history of San Francisco's Bay to
1:10.3	Breakers race.
1:11.6	It's a unique piece of San Francisco's culture that's been
1:14.5	through some highs and lows over the decades. I'm Olivia Allen Price. We'll get
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KQED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KQED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.