A bulls-eye view for Running of the Bull

Lying on the ground in a costume, covered in sweat and being hit by a styrofoam mallet in front of thousands of cheering people is an awesome experience when you’re the head of the two-person bull famous for the Running of the Bull in Dewey Beach.

I was the head of this year's bull, and it was as chaotic as I hoped it might be back in April, when I pitched the idea to Starboard owner Steve Montgomery.

It was also just cool. Everybody I ran into all day, from Starboard staff to strangers I was talking to about the event, was happy to be there.

Celebrating its 19th year, the Starboard's annual Running of the Bull is a celebration of the real Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain.

I have not been to Pamplona, but I have been to a real bullfight. My wife and I went to the southeast coast of Spain, known as Andalucia, on our honeymoon, and we went to a bullfight at Plaza La Malagueta in Malaga on Easter Sunday 2012. It was an experience I don’t need to have again, but it’s also an experience that both of us remember as one of the trip’s highlights.

In a real bullfight, the bull is run to exhaustion by a series of men on horseback who spear the animal a number of times before the matador makes a grand entrance and ceremoniously ends the bull’s life with a stab of his sword. The crowd, respectful of the bull’s sacrifice, still wanted a good show and was blood-thirsty.

The bull for the event in Dewey has a similar fate, but with a twist that could only be found in a town that’s got as many kids out during the day as drinkers at night.

In Dewey, the bull isn’t exhausted from being chased by men on horseback, but by chasing kids and dancing in the morning and then running across three blocks of soft sand in the afternoon.

In Dewey, the matador wears the black vest, gold-trimmed pants and fancy hat, but the crisp, snow-white, collared shirt underneath the vest is optional.

In Dewey, there’s just as much red, but there’s a lot more bikinis and tank tops.

In Dewey, the crowd is thirsty – but it’s a thirst for Bloody Mary's.

Becoming the bull

When I asked Montgomery about being the bull, I explained to him this would be the first time I would be attending the Running of the Bull, and that I thought it would be interesting to write a story from the bull’s perspective.

Less than 24 hours later, Montgomery had responded; he liked the idea.

This is the second time the event has happened during my tenure with the paper, but last summer I had to cover a Dewey Beach Planning Commission meeting. Some would argue the meeting is more tedious than volunteering to dress up in a bull costume on a sunny, 85-degree summer day.

That was all that was involved with becoming the bull. It couldn’t have been much simpler. I didn’t talk to Montgomery about it again until June 29, when I sent him an email about the details. Again he responded quickly; he said he thought it would be a good idea for me to do the kids' event, starting at 9:30 a.m.

“Your story would be best to include the experience on the kids run. People love that we do that kids run,” he wrote.

Sounded good to me. Despite my wife’s disappointment with me not being able to take her and our kids, I agreed to it. (The kids ended up going with her and their grandfather.)

The costume

The star of the show is the bull costume, and this year’s star was brand new.

Montgomery said the last costume had been around since 2004 and had a great life, but, it was time to take the next step in costume design. The new one was made overseas and cost about $9,000, he said.

Other than a brown body, horns and a bull with a silly looking face, there is really almost no comparing the new costume to the original.

Gone is the one-piece body that looks like a wet sleeping bag with a bull head attached. The body is now a thick blanket that would keep anyone warm on the coldest of days.  It attaches with Velcro to a styrofoam-reinforced head.

Gone is the bull head with sagging horns and blank eyes. It’s been replaced with a bull that exudes confidence and hangs off the person who wears it like a marching band bass drum. It has two fans attached to battery packs with USB hook ups.

Gone are brown sweat pants. They’ve been replaced with suspender-supported, brown-fleece pants that would be just as good in the cold as the body.

And just in case anyone didn’t know who sponsors the event, the Starboard logo is now the size of a skimboard instead of a drink coaster.

While all of the body was an upgrade from the old costume, new to the experience was the addition of hooves, which were not designed to be worn in soft sand.

Each hoof is at least the size of an 8-quart crock pot. The hole for the feet was surprisingly secure, but a felt lining left my sweaty feet and ankles covered in lint. The lining extended up my shin a bit, and it rubbed away all the hair in the front of my legs. Nearly 48 hours later, there are still rug burns.

Performing

I’m not going to lie, I was nervous the morning of the running, and Montgomery wasn’t helping. I’m not sure if he was trying to prepare me or psyche me out, but let's just say the tips about being hydrated and preparing for how “BIG” the event is in those emails in the days before the event didn’t help me sleep better the night before.

I had two bull costume partners.

For the kids' event, retired Air Force pilot and former Dewey Beach town council member Zeke Przygocki would be the back end. This was the fifth year for the kids' event, and Przygocki has been the rear end four times.

It’s the role that Monty thinks best suits him, he said laughing, showing me a text from Montgomery a few days before the event.

Przygocki is a big guy with a good attitude. His tip was to just keep moving – to try to make the bull look alive – or at least not dead.

Przygocki couldn’t be the back end for the main event because he was leaving immediately after the kids' event to be in one of the planes doing the fly-over during the National Anthem.

For the main event, the back end was Seth Costello, the Starboard’s insurance agent and partner with Williams Insurance Agency in Rehoboth. Like me, it was his first time at the event.

Costello played football at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and he said when he woke up that morning he had the game-day excitement.

“The difference is, I was in much better shape then. Much better shape,” he said.

Both the morning event for the kids and the afternoon event for the adults are a blur. In both occasions the two-man team was waiting for the word, wearing their brown pants and giant hooves. In both occasions that moment came very quickly.

In the morning, Montgomery got a call from Dewey Police Sgt. Cliff Dempsey that Dewey Business Partnership executive director and kids' event organizer Kelly Ranieri wanted us down on the beach ASAP.

In the afternoon, Costello and I were sitting in the storage room waiting for the run to start. Then all of a sudden Starboard staffer Matt Huber rushed in and said the runners had left, and we needed to move immediately.

There were squeals of joy in the morning and the afternoon, and there must have been a “punch me” sign that I wasn’t aware of somewhere on the bull's head because both kids and adults felt the need to do so.

Moving over the sand in the hooves required a combination of shuffling (so an unexpected dip in the sand wasn’t missed) and high knees (to get over the humps).

The costume's fans didn’t keep me cool in the afternoon sun, but after not using them in the morning, I think they may be there to keep the wearer from passing out from all the carbon dioxide that builds up.

The kids' event was definitely the easier of the two. Przygocki and I went down, shook around a bit, chased the kids a bit and it was over. I will say the kids wanted to be chased more than the adults. They would have run all the way to Bethany if allowed.

The afternoon event was at high tide, so Costello and I were running in soft sand. Huber was our guide through the adults and did a good job keeping us motivated, getting people out of the way and generally making sure the two middle-aged men weren’t going to collapse.

Perhaps the most challenging thing in the costume all day was getting up on stage after the afternoon run. Let's just say the steps on the back of the stage are not made for tired legs, limited visibility and giant hooves.

There were moments of rest between the running and the all important bullfight to end the show.

Starboard manager Keith Kirk checked on Costello and me to see if we needed anything. Costello asked if Kirk had any advice on how the bullfight should go.

“Improvise the hell out of it,” said Kirk.

And that’s basically what happened. A few minutes before 3 p.m., Costello and I suited back up and made our way to Gary’s Dewey Beach Grill, where matador Jay Walsh was waiting. As we made our way over to the ring in the Starboard parking lot, someone yelled into the costume that Walsh would be gored on the third pass.

And that’s what happened, I think. I couldn't see. I couldn’t tell if he was gored or not. I didn’t really know what was going on.

Being slayed by the 10-year-old with a hammer was an unexpected twist. I thought we were done, then I heard the guy with the mic say something about his son hitting us with the hammer to avenge the goring of Walsh.

The young man didn’t waste any time. He was swinging the styrofoam hammer onto the head on the way down from the stage. It was a great way to end the day. Costello and I toppled over. The crowd was going crazy. I swear I could have stayed on the ground longer.

After the show ended, Huber lead us back to the storage room, and just like that it was over. Costello and I hung the costume up, shook hands and went our separate ways. I think we both felt pretty good about the show.

Impact on businesses

In the beginning, the Running of the Bull was attended by 35 people.

Now, there are more people in town wearing red during the second weekend in July than there are wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day. The town is engulfed in red for the whole weekend.

Driving into town, at 8:40 a.m., I stopped in at Fifer’s to grab a drink to hydrate. There was a party of seven dressed in red.

Montgomery said it’s the Starboard’s busiest day of the year.

In between the morning kids' run and the main event, I ate lunch at Hammerhead’s and then made my way down to Woody’s. Both were full of people in red who weren’t even going to the Starboard.

Jimmy O’Conor, Woody’s owner, said it was the busiest day of the year two years ago. It’s busier than July 4 or St. Patrick’s Day, he said.

“We’ll be as busy as we can handle as soon as the event is over because they’ll make their way over here,” said O’Conor.

Starboard staffing and preparation

There’s months of preparation involved so two grown men and 5,000 of their closest friends can run down the busiest road in the state at the busiest time of year in a bull costume.

Montgomery went before town council in February for an expansion of premises permit. He told me weeks ago that Dover Police officer Jeff Davis was going to be performing.

It takes months, but it's the final 48 hours where everything comes together.

The night before, I attended a Dewey Beach Town Council meeting. The stage was already set up and the parking lot had been commandeered with portable bar stations.

Montgomery said he had to tell staff to go home at 4 a.m. the morning of the event. He said they were stocking shelves and coolers, but he needed them to get some sleep before returning at 7 a.m. to finish.

Montgomery said staff from years gone by return every year to help pull off the event. He pointed to a grown man carrying a trash can full of ice.

“He’s a fireman in Washington, D.C.,” he said, adding that the guy cutting all the fruit garnishes in the back is now a chef in Manhattan.

The back alley and the storage room located across the street is humming with activity all day. Two grown men dressed in a bull costume are definitely in the way, but the staff moved around us without saying a word.

After the event

I saw Montgomery on the way back to my car. He said he thought it went great and there had been no complaints from the police or transportation officials on hand.

In all the commotion, I forgot to have a picture taken of me with the bull head on. I stopped by Monday afternoon for a quick photo. Kirk was working, and he immediately stopped what he was doing to walk me over the storage room.

On the way over, Kirk said this year was the biggest ever, but it was good to have it behind them.

“Now we can get back to normal,” he said.

Normal only lasts so long in Dewey, and planning for the 2016 Running of the Bull has already begun. Montgomery has told me there are big plans for next year’s celebration.

“Next year is the 20th anniversary. That one will have some major build up!” he wrote back in April.