TCC09 Stage 2 – “Taste of the Rainforest”
Donald Peterson’s second stage report from last month’s Costa Rica Challenge is now posted on his blog. The first section is included below:
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On morning two and for the rest of the race the organizers wanted to get us going as soon as it was light enough to run. On this morning, with us being in a fairly deep and dense valley, it turned out to be around 6:00am. During the race I got into a morning routine; wake, eat, tear down & pack, prep, then relax until start time.
The kitchen was usually open before 4:30am each morning and the food (which had been prepared by two magnificent cooks who happen to be brothers -Luis and Jesus Alvarado) was awesome! They had gallo pinto (rice and beans) every morning as well as scrambled eggs, tons of fresh fruit, all kinds of hot and cold cereal, and great coffee. I was never in any fear of being hungry!
The race start was pretty casual, “3… 2… 1… GO!” As we were at the end of the road the course started out with a short run back up the way we came in and then went quickly into some single track and fairly quickly after that into some pretty steep climbs through dense rain forest. It was a wet and muddy trail and the mud was that sticky, shoe sucking off kind of mud – it was wicked! About half way up the climb there was a deep section where the front runners had kicked up a wasp nest, I made it past fairly unscathed, only two bites/stings, but some others were not so lucky. One fella got hit about a dozen times.