The Beagle Has Landed
CLICK HERE FOR GREG's DAY-by-Day Coastal Challenge RUNNER REPORT
The two street marathoners from Boise, Idaho peered through the airplane window as it approached Juan Santamaria International Airport in San Jose -- Costa Rica's breezy, very tropical capital, where they sell peppers, warm fruits, and ceramic Bart Simpson figures on the street and everything seems vaguely...well, Hispanic!
"Uh oh,'' said Holly Motes."I don't see any flat places." Does it really matter in a plane crash?
Mary Snyder laughed. "I didn't train for this!"
But the two close friends and running partners were here, for the fourth running of The Coastal Challenge, a romp across the tiny, friendly, venomous and lush Central America country that promises something for everyone: poisonous snakes, muddy single-track on impossibly steep climbs, things that look like bananas but actually are...plantanes? Pantene? Christ, no wonder when I ate one for lunch it was thick, chewy and a tad bitter. Supposed to fry them, I'm told. Oops.
There's a Denny's and a Subway right by the Best Western Arazu, and a supermarket featuring tabloids with scantily clad women. I feel right at home.
No one really knows why they come to Costa Rica to run this race (warrants?) – six days of running for a total (this year) of 207K, or 135 miles for you Yankees (hard miles, I’m promised by RD Tim Holmstrom). But, the runners do come, many with unbridled enthusiasm. They come for the pleasure of it -- for the experience, for M80s.
We start tomorrow (Sunday) on Day One early for a deceptively short 13-miler that I'm told promises to be brutal. Chew on this: The first five miles is a climb of nearly 3,000 feet, for an average of 600 feet per mile. This is where Mark M. broke his foot last year.
Day Two is the longest run, at 57K (do the math, but it's 38 miles). The first two days will take us through a rainforest along the edges of Monteverde -- it promises to be wet and wild.
Day three is a relatively mild 16 miles, followed by 31 miles of day four. On day five, we'll run 22 miles and we'll end this puppy with a relatively sane 15 miles -- the last mile or so which is on a beach reef! Chriminy!
Everyone is telling me to take care of my feet, and they ain't talking pedicures. The terrain promises to be extremely rugged. No one other than back-to-back No. 2 overall runner the last two years Ligia Madrigal, 35, of San Jose told me to pay heed to my feet. Lidia is 34 weeks pregnant, so she won't be running this year. Wimpette.
"It's a great experience,'' Ligia said of the Coastal Challenge. "You see some very beautiful places, and a multi-day race is a life-changing experience."
If this race gets me preggers, then I'll be pissed, Ligia.
"And Costa Rica people are really nice," Lidia added before breaking down in laughter at the sight of my pathetic legs, feet -- well, pretty much my whole bod.
This year, 43 runners from nine countries -- from Singapore to Spain to Austria to Silverado Canyon -- will join 16 varieties of poisonous snakes on the Coastal Challenge.
The run takes place in Costa Rica's dry and rugged northwestern region. I am told not to worry too much about jaguars (the animal, silly, not the car) as they tend to congregate in the southern portion of the country -- you know those maneaters. Very picky about where they hang.
To give you a sense of Costa Rica, there's nothing like picking up the local paper, the Tico Times. A front-page story documents how a homeowner found an 8-foot-long boa constrictor wrapped around the engine block of her SUV. Now, I don't want to stereotype, but in Orange County, Calif., the only thing you're likely to find wrapped around the engine block of your SUV are discarded Starbucks cups that somehow got sucked into the guts of your V8 engine.
I'm just starting to get a sense of this place, having only ventured outside the industrial confines of my hotel to buy bread, cheese and what I thought were bananas at a grocery store. The store is like a funkified version of what you see in the States -- sort of scrappy, sort of carnival like with bright colors and odd smells.
Or, was that me? Airplane food.
It's very breezy (the country, not me). The sights are set to be spectacular tomorrow, as last year's run was overcast the first couple of days, drastically killing the scenery factor.
So, I'm off to Denny's. Can't wait to see what they do to my beloved pancakes. Who turned off the air?
Check back tomorrow and I'll let you know how the first day went.
Greg
