The Costa Rica Coast to Coast Challenge Race
Getting to the start line
Jacqueline Windh / 14.03.2007
The start line is on a sandspit on the Pacific Coast, in the Whales National Marine Park – a wintering ground for the humpback whales that spend their summers off the coasts of British Columbia and Alaska – at latitude 9 degrees north of the equator. Only 70 km from the border with Panama, the sun here is intensely hot and the air is thick and humid.
The bus ride out was mostly uneventful, except for a bit f a scare for two members of team BCR-Forza (Bank of Costa Rica). This is the young “rookie� team of this race – captain Andrés was a volunteer at last year’s Coast to Coast, so has a good idea of what the race entails. They all seem fit and well prepared, but as a team they have little race experience. The buses stopped in the town of San Isidro for a stop at the supermarket and, being Saturday afternoon, Andrés and one team-mate worried that we might not pass through another town with a Catholic church. So they jumped ship to attend mass, and paid for a taxi to take them to the start line at the beach later that night. Their team-mates were pretty worried that they might not show up, but they arrived safe and sound in plenty of time.
Racers were asked to get to the beach in plenty of time for the noon start. The sun was straight up in the sky, and teams huddled together in tiny spots of shade under the palms at the edge of the beach, waiting until the last minute to hike out to the banner at the end of the spit. It was low tide – the start would be a 6 km run on hard-packed sand, north along the beach, to where their bikes awaited them. Not a long run by any means, it would still be a gruelling way to start the race given the intense heat.
SleepMonsters
