Crowds cheer as runners with frying pans race to mark annual Pancake Day

LONDON (AP) — Racers dressed as a skyscraper, beekeeper and a chest of drawers were among dozens of runners in zany costumes zipping around a central London square with a frying pan in hand to celebrate Shrove Tuesday, or “Pancake Day.”

Hundreds of people packed into Guildhall Yard, cheering as participants in the annual Inter-Livery Pancake Race ran around the square while tossing pancakes in their frying pans.

The spectacle was one of many such pancake races across the U.K. to mark the day before the start of Lent, the 40-day period before Easter that Christians mark with prayers, fasting and repentance. Celebrated as Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, in other parts of the world, the name Shrove Tuesday derives from the English word meaning to seek forgiveness or be granted absolution.

The oldest and most famous of pancake races take place in the small town of Olney, England, which legend has it held its first run in 1445.

These days most people mark Shrove Tuesday by cooking pancakes in a nod to the custom of using up eggs and butter before the period of abstinence begins.

The Inter-Livery race featured teams donning fancy dress or traditional garb that represent their livery companies — historic guilds or trade associations that have existed in London for almost 1,000 years.

The company of gunmakers fired the starting gun, the clockmakers timed the races, while the “fruiterers” provided the lemons to go with the pancakes on sale from stands at the square.

Winners receive a trophy — as well as a frying pan.