Costa Rica: The Coastal Challenge 2009
Day 5: An “easy day� at only 47.4 km
Jacqueline Windh / 10.02.2009
Ha, one week ago I would have never thought of a 47 km day as an “easy� day. One week ago I had never even gone that distance in a single day! But after the last two days, 47.4 km, and most of that on low-lying jungle paths, no longer seems like much of a challenge. There definitely seems to be a sense of relief for the 34 or so of us left in Expedition category (of about 60 who started) - the tough days and the big unknowns in terrain are behind us, and now it is just a matter of sticking it out and avoiding any accidents to get ourselves through to the end.
There was a different start this morning. We were asked to be ready by 5am, and we didn’t ask why - we just went to bed and did as told. It runs out we were being boated upriver to our start line! In typical Costa Rican fashion, the boats showed up late - but the good side of that was that the sun was up by the time we were on the river, and we could really appreciate the tour upstream, through mangroves, with herons along the shoreline and scarlet macaws flying downstream in pairs over us. I was glad I had loaded lots of food and drinks in my pack, because the race didn’t actually start until 7 am.
Today the Project Athena women split up - Robyn, Florence, Melissa and Nat Geo writer Andrea going ahead, to make a good time for the team, and Masha and Jonea nursing excruciatingly blistered feet, and plodding along behind. (Only the top three team members’ times are counted each day - but if Masha and Jonea do not finish the whole course then the fast times they got earlier on won’t be allowed to count for the team - so the pressure is on for them to finish). Iwas feeling really strong today, and decided to stick with their front pack for a change - which I managed to do for over 3 hours. I had no trouble keeping with them on the hilly terrain, but once we hit the flats, around the 20 km mark, they kept up a pretty steady run (Robyn calls it the Fred Flintstone shuffle) so I let them go on ahead while I switched to a more run/walk rhythm that suited me better. I could hear Robyn’s laughter echoing through the jungle ahead of me for the next half hour (and they wonder why they don’t see any wildlife!).
SleepMonsters
