Wake Up Call: Sad Bear is very sorry he got drunk at the Bay to Breakers

May 16, 2011, 9:00 AM EDT

Sorry Mr. Bear, but you were warned: No open containers at the Bay to Breakers. Now maybe a few hours in the drunk tank with the inebriated guy in the banana costume and the beer-soaked dude dressed as a crayon will teach you to defy the SFPD. Yes, it only took San Francisco 100 years to ban alcohol at the Bay to Breakers, and Sunday’s race was indeed more sedate because of it … only 75 arrests! But as usual, they ignored the real problem: about every 20th runner was nude. And they were mostly all guys. So fully-clothed bears were hauled off to the lockup, but dudes’ tallywhackers all over the place were OK? That’s just not the America our founding fathers envisioned.

Nor was this.

Ridouane Harroufi of Morocco was the men’s winner of the 7.46-mile race in 34 minutes, 26 seconds, with Lineth Chepkurui of Kenya first for the women in 39:12. No doubt these times were aided by the fact that there was nudity behind them. That tends to make me run faster. And so does this.

Alcohol and floats, sometimes nothing more than rolling kegs, were banned. The 7 a.m. start time was an hour earlier than in past years. Police and security officers set up several “drunk tents” — the first at Hayes and Steiner streets by Alamo Square — where people who have imbibed too much were to be held until they sobered up.

There was no ban on nudity, two years after race organizers attempted to enforce such a prohibition. It was widely ignored then, and the tradition persisted today.

And it wouldn’t be a Bay to Breakers without insults to the Dodgers: