On race day I could understand people who didn't know me assuming I was gay, given the circumstances.

The Bay to Breakers, you probably know, is an annual running race is San Francisco which is unique in that it is simultaneously a legitimate competitive race in which people fly in from all over the world to compete for $74,000 in prize money, and a moving festival/party with giant floats, free alcohol, public nudity, and all manner of silly costumes.

This was my 3rd year competing, and as always I combine the two elements by actually running the course, but not wearing traditional running attire.  Its the one time a year I don my stripper outfit - silver swimsuit and a bowtie.
I hoped to beat last years time by 11 minutes.  To improve on last years haphazard practicing I started training earlier, made a schedule, kept a log, and made sure to begin my recovery earlier (I started last years race sore).  I trained smarter - but not harder.  I skipped on rainy days and never made up for them.  I did do one long run (11miles), but I never matched last year's 4 repeats on the 300ft-in-one-block hill near my house.
In the end I beat my old time but only by 30 seconds.
On the plus side I ended the race with very little soreness or pain, and for the first time had the strength and energy to walk around, see costumes and meet up with friends instead of just lying in the grass for an hour and then going home like last year.

As I began walking back the way I had come I noticed some of those "God Hates Sinners" people with their giant signs and bull horns who come out to every public party type event in San Fransisco.

And I got a spontaneous idea for a simple counter-protest.
No words.  No sign. 
I, dressed like a male stripper, still listening to my MP3 player music, stood near them, and began to dance. 



Fun.  Life.  Free. Joy.  Dance.  No one gets hurt.  How can anyone say dancing and enjoying a beautiful day like this is something God hates?  God invented all this. 
I just happen to not being wearing a lot of clothes.  Hell, humans invented clothes.  God puts us here naked.  I'm not even gay.  I'm not Catholic either.  (Catholic is in the largest font on the list of things God hates).  I think my implication was understood because all the people passing by began to cheer and wave and take pictures - which must have confused my Christian friends, as I had come from behind and they had no way to know I was there.
Eventually they turned around, and said something I couldn't hear over my headphones, and tried to move away from me a little.  Then I went on to put on another show near a different set of the same group a little up the road.  I was told by a couple people that I was their hero. 
I was just happy to make people's experience of passing by the hate filled religious fanatics a more positive and entertaining one.
I'm thinking, maybe a worthwhile annual tradition...