Bay to Breakers 2011 sub-seeded placement?!?

I've ran the Bay to Breakers 12K race 9 of the past 10 years (only missed the 2002 race because I was drinking the night before, haha).  I'm probably part of the 2% or so of people who actually run the race for time.  I bet probably there are 50,000 runners that do it every year, but only about half of them finish =)

And in case you don't know about the usual race atire - it can range from crazy costumes, to simply nothing at all, haha  It's always a fun way to start off the race season - from the tortillas flying in the air before the race, it totally represents the craziness of SF.  And I believe that it is still the largest race in the world based on number of people.  

Anyways, this year I got an invitation to register as part of the sub-seeded group to start near the front by the elite runners, because I finished in the top 500 of the race in 2009.  I've never ran any race as part of any seeded or sub-seeded group, so I'm excited to at least make it into the front corral area!  And in reviewing the seeded and sub-seeded qualification times, I really shouldn't be there based on my race times =)  The sub-seeded qualifying time is 37:20, and the best 10K time I've done is 42:43 haha

2009 - 56:10 (492 out of 22038)

2010 - 54:55 (658 out of 24423)

I was a little surprised that I actually placed higher in 2009 even though I got a better time in 2010.  I remember it being really hot in 2009, so maybe that helped me relative to everyone else.  

Here are some sample costumes that you'll see at Bay to Breakers (a lot of them I can't post here, haha)