“I was crawling in the mud and grabbing branches to pull myself up the thick, slippery steps,” said Beverly Anderson-Abbs, examining her thumb, bruised from a fall on the eroded, muddy steps in the Costa Rican jungle. “But then the payoff came, on the fabulous stump-hopping downhill.”
Anderson-Abbs, forty-two, was among the sixty-eight international competitors from twelve countries participating in the six-day, 200-kilometer (120-mile) Coastal Challenge. The staged expedition run, scheduled February 4–9, 2007, passes through the northern mountainous and Pacific coastal regions of Costa Rica—from La Fortuna to Bahia Salinas. The competitors would have close encounters with jagged volcanoes, mountains, lush jungle, steep gravel roads, and uninhabited beaches. Anderson-Abbs, an environmental specialist from Red Bluff, California, won the event in 2005, the first year it was held.
Along the course, staffed checkpoints supply water, energy drinks, and snacks, allowing racers to carry minimal supplies. Gear is transported by big-hearted volunteers to camp, where racers refuel with sprawling buffet dinners, which are followed by communal camping in tents under starry skies.
The race’s 21-kilometer first stage started in La Fortuna, near the Arenal volcano, one of the world’s most active. Within half-an-hour the leaders crossed checkpoint (PC-)1. Fifteen minutes later, they were “hip-high” in mud, slugging through the jungle upward to the shoulder of Cerro Chato, an extinct volcano. Later they would cross over a part of Arenal.
“I didn’t expect so much mud, but I love jumping and grabbing trees on steep, technical downhills,” said Ligia Madrigal, a Costa Rican adventure racer, who placed second here last year. “When I was a little girl, I remember going up hills just so I could run down them.” Despite her speedy descent, Madrigal was trailing Anderson-Abbs by nearly 20 minutes approaching PC-2. “It’s a long race and I don’t want to hurt myself like I did last year, so I’m going at my own pace.”
While Madrigal and Anderson-Abbs fought it out at the front, other runners like Dune Watson, from Calgary, Canada, and Dot Helling, fifty-six, from Mount Pelier, Vermont, shared the same game plan. “I’ve never done anything remotely like this,” said Hale, who has done mostly half-marathons and thought the mud was fun.
Anderson-Abbs reported having her own mud fun. “I heard that mud-sucking sound with each step,” said Anderson of the final muddy decent to the finish. “The next thing I knew, I lost my shoe in the mud and I was just wearing my sock.” She spent the next few minutes up to her elbows in mud, yanking her soaked shoe from the “oopy mud.”
Feet fully clad, she hammered the remaining slick knolls to win the women’s division and place seventh overall, in 2:50:28, 28 minutes behind the overall day’s winner, local racer Juan Carlos.
Seventeen minutes later, Madrigal crossed the finish in 3:07:51, taking second place in the women’s category. Others trotted in over the following hours. “I love being out for long days and being part of this country’s amazing landscape,” said Helling, who reached camp in 5:18:15, holding a rib she bruised on the last downhill. “I was so excited by the lush, green field that I pushed it a little too hard.” Despite the injury, Helling says the fact she heard the volcano rumble “made it all worth it, and while my legs are not ready to go right now, I’m eager for tomorrow.”
Photo: Beverly Anderson-Abbs, forty-two, the 2005 race winner from Red Bluff, California, races the 2007 Coastal Challenge.