Michael: Cerro de la Muerte

Crazy animals
Running through the wild forest
For no good reason.

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

The North Face Ecogreen Cerro de la Muerte trail race was a great way to end the year. The race is run on a beautifully diverse and challenging course in the cloud forest just south of San Jose, the capitol of Costa Rica.

The 50k course (actually just a little short at about 48k) is set up as a double out and back, heading out 14 kilometers then coming back to center then heading out 10 kilometers in the opposite direction then heading back to the center point to finish. The 21k, which Kimme did, was the second half of the 50k course, which was kind of fun as we got to see each other twice during the race.

The first half was a rollercoaster jungle ride of mixed single track and fire road, which included a bit of everything; slick roots, rocks, a little slick mud (though thankfully not that red clay sink up to your ankles kind we’ve experienced elsewhere in Costa Rica), small stream crossings, and even an assisted rope climb over a very large downed tree. It was suppose to be the easy half of the course leading up to the second part; the long climb up to the 10,000 ft. altitude of Cerro de la Muerte. But that climb was very straight forward and very runnable. My splits; I did the first section in 3:30 and the CdlM section in 3:50 which would suggest that it was the more difficult section, but my legs were cooked by the time I started the climb and therefore I walked a good portion of it. I ran all of the downhill to the finish and under fresh legs could’ve run all of the uphill as well.

We were also fortunate to have perfect running weather, clear and in the 60s. We were required to bring a jacket and at the CdlM peak it was open, windy and cold, but as soon as we dropped off the peak and began to descend, it was fine so the jacket was never needed. I’m sure there have been years when it’s been much colder and if it were raining and you were running late, a jacket would be essential.

As an aside, right before the race start as I was standing in line to use the bathroom (I was the last one to go before the race started. There should be an award for that.), I noticed a fellow American wearing Hoka Speed Instincts, a shoe I was interested in. He told me he was from Utah. Turns out I was taking a dump right after trail running sensation Hayden Hawks who two weeks ago finished 2nd in the TNF 50 miler in San Francisco. He won this race in course record time. He said he really enjoyed the course though he thought he would’ve enjoyed it more if his legs weren’t a little dead from the 50 miler two weeks earlier.