The Coastal Challenge
To the Finish
Lisa de Speville (Photo: Sergio Pucci) / 26.01.2005
The rain last night didn\'t last long and it didn\'t seem to be long before we were roused for a 05h30 breakfast and start - by around 06h30. I put on my wet clothes - again - and moved down to the start with Kim, Sandy and Luke. Standing on the muddy bank of the stream in which we\'d bathed the night before, we set off on a loop-route running initially on dirt road and then on the ... beach. It was fortunately a beautiful morning - humid and not too hot, the sky overcast. For the first time too we ran north with the beach on our left, not right. We were all laughing later about how we had to adjust to running on an opposite camber for the first time in 7-days!
We got through the finish, greeted by whoops and cheers from the other runners, event staff and guests. Although the whole experience of stage running is enjoyable, it\'s always a great feeling to get to the end of the week and the completion of the run.
We had only 45-minutes to pack-up so we shot down to the river again to rinse off before packing our crates and gear away, ready for what would be a rather long trip to the party venue at Ventanas near Dominical - the same place we\'d stayed at on the night of stage 4. Well, we were bundled into the back of three cattle trucks for a 2-something hour trip to a town where we would be met by our air-conditioned busses. The busses had been unable to make it through to the finish area because of mud, bad roads and flooded rivers.
In the town we went to find lunch, loading on to the busses some time after 2pm. It was only 3h 45 later that we arrived at Ventanas, tired from the long trip. There the party had started - music up in the dinner tent provided by two locals on a marimba (type of xylophone instrument). I thoroughly enjoyed their bouncy tunes. Down on the beach, where we had the prize giving, our \"event musician\", Emile Borde, was playing. He\'s a steel drum player, originally from Trinidad.
Dinner was served at 8pm followed by prize giving and a fabulous slideshow. The winners (3 men and women) went home with beautiful stone sphere trophies. The rest of us got map mementos, commemorating every stage of the event completed.See All Event Posts
