I ran in the Urban Iditarod on Saturday! Here in San Francisco, we don’t have the facilities to run a real Alaskan Iditarod. Still, we’re not about to give up, so we make a few compromises and run our very own race.

For the better part of the day, hundreds of us did our best to turn into real Alaskan sled dogs. I wore a coat of fur, barked as loud as i could, stuck my tongue out and panted, howled at the moon, and sniffed a few other dogs’ butts. After that warm up, I strapped myself into a lead attached to a shopping cart and ran for my life. Oh, and I also drank copious amounts of beer. :P

The iditarod was a smaller, themed version of Bay to Breakers. Along those lines, it was less organized, but the underground feel added lots of energy and spontaneity. When everyone’s dressed up as a dog in some way or other, inhibitions drop pretty quickly.

The race felt like giant obstacle course – pedestrians, tourists, drivers, cable cars, police, even other carts and dogs were just speed bumps on the path. We definitely surprised everyone on the route, and it was great fun to yell at onlookers to “mush, you huskies, mush!” Some even ran with us for a block or so.

Pictures coming soon. I’m looking forward to next year!