Costa Rica: The Coastal Challenge
Day 6: Javier bounds over the reefs...
Jacqueline Windh / 03.02.2008
There were more than a few tears at the finish line today.Competitors lined the beach at lovely Playa Junquillal, the sandy bay that we camped at overnight, for an early start at first light this morning. Although this final stage was relatively short, at 20.5 km, it would be following the rocky coastline and it was important to get on to the course before the tide got too high. Even with the early 5:45 am start, the tide had already been rising for nearly two hours, so the pressure was on. A natural time cut-off was in place.
Racers lined the start line in the near-dark. Since Rachel had sprained her ankle and would be taking it slowly anyway, her husband Simi and their new racing dog Tica decided to hike with her. Tica has followed the group from the start in La Fortuna 6 days ago, and has attached herself to Rachel and Simi. We are all so happy that they’ve attached themselves to her, and are going to take her back to California with them!
The first half of the route was along dirt roads through open forest. Our press truck passed racers near the halfway mark, and Javier Montero had a small lead, of less than a minute, over his main rival Jeam Pommier at that point. Javier was coming into this stage with a five minute advantage – which is significant on a short stage as this – so was looking the favourite to take the overall title.
We continued on to the resort at Bahia Bolaños that is the finish line, and I headed straight down to the beach to backtrack along the course. I travelled over just a few hundred metres of sand before I stepped up on to the rocky reefs that formed the last few kilometres of this stage. The terrain was very rugged – irregular sandstone shelves, and areas of sandstone boulders – but the gritty rock had a sandpapery surface and was not slippery at all. See All Event Posts
