In case you haven’t heard, ING is trying to ruin Bay to Breakers and the supes are stepping in to try to find a happy medium, but it looks like ING won’t be happy until every last ounce of life or “San Francisco-ness” is sucked from the event.

Did they not do ANY research into what this event was before they signed on as sponsors?  THE EVENT HAS FLOATS, DRINKING AND NAKED PEOPLE IN IT!

You don’t buy a circus if you don’t want clowns and elephants.  You don’t buy a float in the Rose Parade if you’ve got hay fever, and you don’t get involved in Bay to Breakers if you have something against drinking, floats, nudies and general debauchery.  Bay to Breakers will NEVER be a highbrow runners-race.  (Though, as a runner, I am hoping to run the event this year for the first time- BECAUSE of, not in spite of, the crazy atmosphere.)

San Francisco already has “legitimate” race that already comes without any floats, drinking and nudies.  It’s called the San Francisco Marathon, and it is tragically undersupported.  If ING wanted a “world class racing event,” why not invest in that race, which has so much potential, vs buy into the hot mess that is Bay to Breakers? My guess is that they just didn’t do their research.

ING Events Person: Hey, I know!  Let’s buy into some races the top 5 markets!  What’s the biggest race in New York?

Research Lackey Using Google: The New York Marathon!

ING Events Person: Brilliant, what’s the biggest race in San Francisco?

Research Lackey Using Google: Oh, Bay to Breakers!

I think another thing that is rubbing me wrong here is that I *like* ING.  I like them as a brand and use and enjoy their services, but I think they are just coming out looking at worse like stodgy corporate stick-in-the-muds and at best like people who just didn’t do their due diligence before signing on.

(And, before you start lamenting the “poor people who actually live there and have to deal with the mess,” I was a proud resident of 830 Hayes Street, halfway up the Hayes Street Hill, for years and Bay to Breakers Sunday was, hands down, the awesomest day of the year and the one thing I miss the most about living in that neighbourhood.)