We want first to congratulate the 15,000 runners who took part in the SF marathon this past Sunday: you are amazing. Congratulations to all of you. But who is the dunderhead who decided to have the race start at 5:20 in the morning? You read it right, that is 5 bleeping 20 am! Outside temperature in the low 30s, and fog so thick that, if it wasn’t dark already, you would not see your toes anyway. For the slower runners, there was even an earlier start, at 5am, that the organizers called simply the early start. As opposed to what, exactly? Oh, lucky me, I’m running the late start, I can sleep in till 4am.

It sounds like a Ratbert nightmare. Like, running 26.2miles in the San Francisco hills is such a walk in the park, they had to make things a bit more interesting. -Hey, how about having the runners carry a big wooden cross? –No, too religious, won’t fly with the PC crowd. –We could have volunteers flog them with wet towels? –It’s SF, they might like it. –Oh, I got it, we’ll have them run in the cold damp dark night! –Yeah, no one will get up to cheer for them, and there won’t be any public transportation in the middle of the night. They’ll have to run to the starting line. We’ll call it a warm up. I love it!

They were advertising the marathon with ‘The Bridge is Back’ as the course went over the Golden Gate for the first time since 1998. Did the runners even notice they crossed the bridge? You bet, they could hear the fog horn, and they were asked $5 at the toll plaza. Even though, many had a smile on their face when they finished. They must have had it too easy. Next year, how about not closing these two lanes on the bridge, and have the runners fight it with the trucks?

How goes the saying again? Early start flips the bird?

Picture courtesy of SF Marathon sponsor, the SF Chronicle