By Mike Fanelli
I’ve never really written about this, but, was prompted to do so by an old timey running bud that I bumped into a few days ago. We had not seen each other in quite some years. He asked the inevitable question, “so, you still runnin’?”
To which I automatically reply, “every damn day.”
“So then, you running Bridge to Bridge on Sunday?”, he went on to ask. “You won it, didn’t cha’?”
Bridge to Bridge is one of those mega race thingys…it’s been around 42 years. Second biggest race in San Fran behind Bay to Breakers with like 10,000 runners.
And yes, as a 22-year-old ‘up and comer’ back in 1978, while seeking a qualifier spot for the Marathon Trials (weren’t we all), I was the official winner… kind of.
It was an 8-miler back then and had over 8,000 runners…it went from the Ferry Building and out to Fort Point immediately beneath the Golden Gate Bridge and then turned around and came part way back while finishing on the grass at Marina Green. Sports Illustrated billed it as “America’s most beautiful run.”
We take off from downtown and race up along the Embarcadero as a sea of humanity…20 or so of us separate ourselves from the throngs before hitting the 880. It’s a pretty stacked field, yet, I am in about 4th at the turnaround …am having a breakthrough race. That being said, the clear leader is Benton Hart…a Modesto-based bad ass BYU alum who is dominating the NorCal road racing scene…one more guy I can’t recall and then Dartmouth grad and 1968 Olympian at 10,000 meters, Tom Laris. I am legitimately three full football fields behind Benton Hart…and was surprised that it wasn’t six football fields.
At any rate, I trained on that course nearly every single day and so understood its finer nuances . Apparently, although I could not actually see this unfold, the leaders were coming back towards the straggling masses and were on their inside and just following that long line of lumbering bodies…in so doing, the finish line must have slipped them by. They could not see it through the crowd of runners on their right hand side. I on the other hand, having done advance finish line reconnaissance, knew exactly where it was and so busted through that jogging worm of participants and out into the adjacent street for a full on frontal assault of a kick to the finish line.
I was psyched with my effort but even more surprised that I was being descended upon by all of the TV cameras and press corps. I’m all like ‘whoa man’…’they sure make a big damn deal over fourth at this race’…well, I caught on pretty quickly that I was actually the first guy across the finish line and so declared the official winner.
I am all like ‘WHAT???’ Dude, I couldn’t even lift the stinky ass insoles outta’ Benton Hart’s overused Onitsukas…you kidding me???’
Short story long, at the awards ceremony, they call me up to receive first place…a thirty-five pound mound of maple wood base and some massive Remington-like statue on top. I smile sheepishly upon acceptance and proceed to say something along the lines of ‘thank you, but this belongs to the rightful winner, Benton Hart’…this race had been decided miles before the finish and there was no way in hell I’d have EVER caught him…so thanks, but this belongs to him…and I called him up and handed it to him and he lifted it above his head and everybody went home.
What totally blew my young long hair bearded skinny white butt away was the next morning’s San Francisco Chronicle putting it on the front page and declaring it some great big act of sportsmanship. It had never occurred to me as such…it was just the legit thing to do.
That’s the thing about running that sets our sport apart…it is so black and white and measured in distance and in time. To this day, that specific measurability is what I love… why I come back out for more punishment every SINGLE morning…even 41 years after this coming weekend’s Bridge to Bridge race.
If you’re racing it this Sunday, make sure you’re hip to exactly where they keep the finish line.
