Welcome to The World’s Expedition Run! 2008 is our fourth running of The Coastal Challenge in spectacular Costa Rica, and we’re working very hard to make it the best year yet!
If you’ve run with us before, you can expect some exciting changes as well as some of the favorite areas we traveled through last year.
If you are new to our adventure, please acquaint yourself with the information on our web site and you might even do some more of your own research on our exciting host country — one of the most popular international adventure destinations!
This year we’re following a philosophy of providing an authentic expedition feel by tapping into that spirit of adventure as much as possible…and in deciding not to detail the full route in advance for 2008 we are taking you along with us.
We’re setting our event apart from others by continuing to break free of traditional constraints and work to provide you with an amazing running experience. If you know our races you can remain absolutely certain that it will be an epic challenge, full of rugged and varied terrain, breathtaking vistas, dramatic climate changes and a hundred indescribable moments that will truly test the measure any runner and possibly bring some of you to new levels of awareness. This will be a year to remember.
What we will tell you is that, for the first time, we will not move the event into an entirely new region — we will be keeping it in the Northwest again in 2008 before heading back to a Southern Route in 2009. For those of you who were with us in 2007, you will recognize some of the spectacular sites but you will experience a very different course.
We are developing some great course enhancements and amazing daily routes full of even more trail and technical sections. The terrain will be more rugged and the trails more remote, and while we won’t be detailing this on our web site as in year’s past, we are creating an
all-new and detailed Race Guide that will be issued to each runner at on-site Registration.
The information in the Guides will be based on information provided by our Race Director and Course Designer and recommendations from our Advisory Board, including our newly appointed member Jim Mandelli, a veteran Coastal Challenge competitor. We are also taking feedback from other past runners, as we do each year, to ensure that we create the best possible course and overall experience.
Like last year, the Route will wind across Costa Rica for 6 days and be anywhere from 200 to 225 kilometers in length. It will begin near a major volcano and end in Bahia Salinas, where you can look across the bay and see the shores and mountains of Nicaragua but the rest of the Route and Itinerary will not be unveiled until January.
If you enjoy running in wild, windswept and elemental places then we invite you to step up to the line and count yourself among the stout-hearted ranks who decide to “take on the challenge” in 2008 at The Coastal Challenge in Costa Rica!