Thursday, October 4, 2012

By the Crack of Noon

Even in San Francisco, where many people run the famous Bay to Breakers race stoned, with a margarita in hand, and wearing an orange wig and a tutu, the racers still line up at the starting line by 8am. That means they're leaving the house around 7:15, and waking up even earlier than that to get ready -- whether "ready" means costumed, naked, drunk, high, or in proper running gear.

 

But here, on the night before Anthony is set to participate in the famous Paris to Versailles run, he stays up late and doesn't bother to set an alarm. On the morning of the race, he eats a small but leisurely breakfast and even takes a shower, prompting me to ask "Why?!" (His answer: "I like to start out fresh."). He takes the metro and gets to the start line at the Eiffel Tower in plenty of time for the crack of the gun at the crack of 10am.


He is pleased to report that he beats his goal time of 1:20 in the 16k race by over a minute, placing him in the top 20% of the ~21,200 runners.

  

On the backside of the race medal, which highlights the 100th year anniversary of the birth of famed black-and-white photographer Robert Doisneau, is a sentence that translates as:

1/100 here, 1/100 there, put together they would never make more than 1, 2, or 3 seconds pinched off of eternity.

So the award for Most Relaxed Approach to running races and Most Existential Artsy Medallions goes to....the French.








 

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