As you know, we came to San Francisco to run the famous Bay to Breakers fun run. Brad Tada, a fellow runner, came dressed as Gumby and had me dress as a "cougar." He kept talking about running naked, so I was surprised when he showed up in the lobby like this!

It's about 7.25 miles and is now in its 99th year. This is actually a scouting trip for when we come back NEXT year, and boy...did we learn a lot! The following photos are a selection from the 150+ pics I took during the run. I hope I don't get dinged for "violation of terms of service." LOL!

Many people are already drunk when they get to the start line. The city has a zero tolerance level for drunken behavior and drinking in public, but as you'll see later, no rules about public nudity! These girls were kissing each other and all the men around them, much to Brad's delight.

At one point while waiting for the start, flour and corn tortillas started flying through the air. It was crazy!! These things hurt when they hit you, too!

My little video about the start line.

We found some kids from Hawaii!

This is a DECENT photo of these guys! After I took the picture, they said, "Thank God for the internet, huh?!"

This run is HUGE...it plays host to 100,000 runners, many in costume or in no clothes at all, and what looked like as many spectators. We recommend you go all out if you're going to do this.

The caveman displays an ancient cel phone.

If you go in a group, go with a theme!

There was a group of "salmon" running the course backwards.

...followed by bears.

They also have floats in this race...which made me realize it's really just one big parade.

They don't have the floats on the whole course.

Mustard & ketchup.

As you can see, everyone wanted to take a picture with Brad...I mean Gumby!

People tried to give him beer.

People asked him to pose with their kids.

People tried to capture him to take home.

People tried to tempt him to veer off course.

People confessed their love for Gumby since childhood.

People thought he was the best prop. I should tell you that Brad and I had heard a lot about the nudity on the course, but there were fewer naked people than we expected...by a long shot.

That didn't stop Brad from stripping out of his Gumby suit at mile 4 to run naked for a while. See the signs he's approaching? These were people on bullhorns denouncing the perversion of the event and commanding people to repent. After this shot, Brad stopped to do a little booty dance in front of the lady with the bullhorn. LOL.

He got back into costume to continue with the notoriety.

...after all, it enabled him to dance with wild abandon.

Actually, this dance makes me laugh out loud! I'm sorry I didn't get a longer clip. I have one more video, but I don't think the Advertiser will allow me to post it. If you want to see it, you can visit my Youtube channel.

We could smell a lot of people smoking weed throughout the course. And I mean, throughout six of the seven miles! Then we saw this guy.

Spectators love to dress up, too!

Drunken chef spectators on Hayes.

People who live along the course all have house parties, many with themes.

Not sure why the pope and two gorillas were together.

Were these bacon guys runners or spectators?

BLT

San Francisco!

Gnomes

I am a cougar, after all! Hello, boys!

Looks like I met the devil at the finish line!

Even after we finished, people were fawning over Gumby. Here, some drunk girls tackle him and tell him they love him.

Awww. Cute.

OK I better wrap this up, there are so many more photos but I'll figure out how to post them later. You can also check out the photos I uploaded from my phone!

We didn't know until we finished that this "race" is really not a run for time, or even to finish! There are a few hundred serious runners who actually do this for time, but for the rest of the 100,000, it's one big party parade. Some people abandon the race halfway through (or sooner) to just join the rest of the party. Now I know why they give us our T shirts when we pick up our packets!

Our time? I think we finished in three or four hours. We ran, we walked, and we stopped a lot for people who wanted to take pictures of Gumby. Who knew that "everyone loves Gumby," as everyone told us?

See you next year!