• The San Francisco Marathon is set to bring out 31,000 runners at the outrageously early hour of 5:15 am Sunday morning, and there will be road closures all over town. As seen on the map above, street closures will affect the Embarcadero, Fisherman’s Wharf, the Marina, Presidio, Golden Gate Bridge, Outer Richmond District, Haight-Ashbury, Guerrero Street, and Mission Bay. [KQED]
• The feel-good story of the minor-league Oakland Ballers isn’t feeling so good anymore, as an agent has pulled four players off the team for safety reasons, including their celebrated woman pitcher Kelsie Whitmore. Oakland crime seems to be one of these safety concerns, as the players are being housed in a more dangerous neighborhood than what they were promised, but the team has also allegedly not handled players’ injuries in a medically sound fashion. [Chronicle]
• The Richmond District’s Green Apple Books got a glowing writeup in USA Today, celebrating the 57-year-old SF Legacy Business. [USA Today]
• Amidst the current COVID summer uptick, the SF Department of Public Health is asking people to “consider” wearing masks again in crowded public spaces. [KRON4]
• Bay Area filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola is being accused of some creepy and inappropriate behavior on the set of Megalopolis, as Variety has videos of him kissing young women who were extras on-set, following reports in the Guardian that he was trying to kiss topless extras in another scene. [Variety]

Image: SF Marathon

Sunday's Escape from Alcatraz triathlon started off to a tragic start when 46-year-old Ross Ehilinger died mere moments after the start of the race. The man, in town for the race from Austin, Texas, suffered an apparent heart attack after plunging into the frigid waters of the Bay shortly after the race's 7:30 a.m. start time.

Race organizers say that the temperature of the water had nothing to do with the man's death, although to avoid conflicts with this year's America's Cup, the race took place three months earlier and in colder water than previous years. Bill Burke, the race's director, stated that Ehilinger died from a probable undiagnosed heart condition that led to the cardiac arrest minutes after the beginning the race.

This is the first fatality in the history of the 33-year-old of Escape from Alcatraz race, which involves a 1.5-mile swim across the Bay, an 18-mile bike ride and an 8-mile run through Golden Gate Park.

[NY Daily News]

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On Sunday morning, the annual San Francisco Marathon laced throughout the foggy streets of the city. Carb-loaded men and women took part in full marathon (26.6 miles), 2 half marathons, 5k, or the "progressive marathon" events. The main course went back and forth across the Golden Gate Bridge, weaving around the city, ending at the Embarcadero.

The winners from yesterday's race were three-time Texan Andrew Cook, 28, and Yoko Shibui, 30.

Did any of you run in yesterday's race? How did you place?

By Joe Kukura

Our Bay to Breakers coverage – which kicked off this morning in a post so drunk and confused it had to be deleted – continues without shame as we direct you to this handy Bay to Breakers Liquor Store Locator. Many of you know how long sections of this race course are painfully lacking in places to buy additional smokes and booze for your continued "running." But with knowledge of a few specific escape valves in Golden Gate Park, you can dash into civilization at the right spots and return smack dab into the mayhem with a solid inventory.

The map is provided in full-size and analyzed in street-level detail at the invaluable Exercising While Intoxicated blog. (Full Disclosure: um, we wrote it.) The overall situation with liquor stores on the race course is summed up as such:

Both the starting and finishing stretches of the Bay to Breakers race course are badly barren of liquor stores, with a healthy abundant patch in the middle. The course's first liquor store open on a Sunday morning doesn't materialize until past the 1.5 mile marker, Go Go Market at the Ninth Street turn. Shocking, huh? They've been open since 6. From there on it's solid coverage through Hayes Valley, up Hayes Hill, and Western Addition. Special attention should be paid to jumping off course in the middle of the Panhandle to visit Lucky Supermarket at Fulton & Masonic. You'll get supermarket discounts on beer and hard liquor, and this is your last chance to get liquor until painfully-way-more-off-course options up at 11th and 19th Avenues far along into Golden Gate Park.

The Holiday season is in full swing in NYC, with holiday lights in Brooklyn, a giant snow globe in Bryan Park and Chanukah specials for ham. One citizen decided to go vigilante on annoying car alarms, a murder suspect used a fake Asian accent on the stand and a video of a man being beaten up by teenage girls on a subway shocked the city. And we interviewed soon-to-be-leaving-Gawker editor Choire Sicha, who said, "Wouldn't a kinder, gentler Gawker be hideously unreadable? No, we never talked about that. It would be hysterical but we haven't."

Londonist was proud to announce the winner of this year's Turner Prize was Mark Wallinger who made long-standing London protester Brian Haw a work of art, after he has previously been made into a sort of law due to his lengthy banner-waving vigil outside parliament. The strength of the pound made real in the form of a 25 foot high coin on a quiet patch of the Thames river bank, aiming to inspire all Londoners in a publicly voted decision on spending £50 million Lottery money. Perhaps some new play projects for London kids who, for the lack of youthful entertainment, are trying to amuse themselves by collecting prostitute calling cards, which are worryingly rigged and booby-trapped. And for those who are anticipating a lovely fat check from a great-aunt this Christmas and wondering what to spend it on, the London Marathon will need a new sponsor after 2009. How does The Londonist London Marathon sound?

Bostonist ducked and covered when a gas tanker tipped over and exploded in the nearby town of Everett. No one got hurt, but cars and homes were destroyed in the blaze. Making matters worse, the driver of the tanker had a few smudges on his record. Bostonist was then agog as their former governor, who usually doesn't hang out in Massachusetts that much, made the news in every possible way. Mitt Romney gave a speech about every religion except his own. However, several other individuals were more interested in the news that Romney still had illegal immigrants working at his mansion. In other Mitt-free news, transit police put out the alert for a "Green Line Groper" who had been making the lives of high-school teens extremely unpleasant. Bostonist also joined a polyamory club and found out that polyamorous people are a lot like normal people, only with more variety.

Well, actually, Muni's only tracking one event that far into the future: the SF Marathon. We can't believe the dates have already been set for the next decade's worth of running, but see for yourself after the jump!

Some people may claim that this is not particularly newsworthy. To those people we say, oh go jump in a lake.

Apparently it's not totally uncommon for racers to die in marathons -- two men died during the LA Marathon in March, and in 2003, a 28-year-old died of dehydration during Bay to Breakers. We send our condolences to the Wired family (with whom SFist's only contact has been losing a game of softball) and to Goggins's family.

celebrates the growth and accomplishments of four of these students, three of whom ended up completing the LA Marathon. We watch the students ramp up both their training and their mental discipline, with compelling results.

We as a viewer yearned for a greater depth and complexity of story (because we know that there's complexity to be had) as well as a little less manipulation from this relatively uncomplicated addition to the Mad Hot Spellbound genre of documentary films. But, actually, we don't think we're the people this film is intended to reach. Instead, we see this film as ideally suited for a PBS documentary series or to be shown in the classroom. In fact, multiple educators in the audience begged for the film to be released on DVD so they could share with their students.

Runners High is playing again on Saturday at 3:30 at the Kabuki (bring the kids!) and next Tuesday at 8:30 at El Rio (bring a blanket!).