48th Annual San Blas ‘Half’ Marathon of Coamo

A Grand Excuse to Party all Night,
all Day and the Next Night too

The very first ‘foot race’ of 3 miles was held in February of 1963 by its sponsors, the Coamo Fraternity of Delta Phi Delta. It was conceived as a tribute to honor one of the Patron Saints of Coamo, San Blas. Yes, they have 2 Patron Saints whereas most towns have only one. Within a few years, the route was extended to 21.0975 Kilometers (slightly over 13 miles) and has grown into a race of international proportions.

Contestants  from over 50 countries have made the ‘Coamo Run’

In fact, in the last 10 years of the 21Km marathon, all have been won by runners from outside Puerto Rico (or the US for that matter). The Men’s Overall Division was won this year by 26 year old Patrick Nthiwa of Kenya with a time of 1 hour, 2 minutes and 50 seconds.  He received $8,000 for his efforts, but did not break the current best time of 1 hour, 2 minutes, 10 seconds. Patrick would have got an extra $5000 had he beat it. His time was the 5th best ever.  There is a separate Women’s Overall Division with a purse of $8,000. That was won by Ann C. Bererwe also of Kenya. There are additional sub-categories based on age, another for residents of Coamo, one for residents of Puerto Rico and an International category. There is a Wheelchair Category as well. Medals are handed out in a formal ceremony that immediately follows the Marathon. It cost $20 to enter, $5 more if you wait until the last month before the race to register.

That pretty much sums up the ‘official’ San Blas Marathon Web site spiel.

I have to say, even when I was in peak form, I could barely hike or ski 13 miles in a single day, much less run it on foot in 85 degree temperatures so I have a lot of respect for those that did. Especially the runners older than myself.

Its worth noting that a standard sanctioned marathon is 42.195 Kilometers.

The Scurvy Dog’s First Hand Report:

First and foremost, this is THE big event for Coamo. Puerto Ricans from all over the island come to party and watch the race. Many folks stake out their ‘little’ site along the road weeks ahead of the race with markers and flags of all kinds.  It’s quite colorful.  By race day, there is literally no place left to park a car along the marathon route.

Many folks that drove in from elsewhere, camped out the night before. This is very much a family event so there were people of all ages wandering around. Some have been coming to the same place for over 15 years so they are very careful to take care of their little spot. That said, the city was prompt to do clean-up the next morning. I even saw a school bus of kids out doing their part, collecting garbage. That was simply awesome!

Though there is no formally organized parade around the marathon course (of which I’m surprised there ain’t one), the locals love to cruise the route showing off their rides. I saw pretty much every kind of jeep or ‘jeep like product’ ever made. Same goes for motorbikes. Hundreds of them… of every size, color and type from Mopeds to Harleys.

Another fixture of Puerto Rico are the local DJ’s blasting out music and advertising from the tops of their trucks or vans with HUGE speaker systems. You can hear these things coming from a mile off. I like ’em. They add to the ambiance that is Puerto Rico (like the roosters crowing all day long or the Coquis singing at night).

These ‘Boom Boxes on Wheels’ sound like they are right in your living room when they go by, they are THAT loud.

The half marathon route starts just outside of town, proceeds through the center of Coamo, continues out into the local countryside and loops back through the downtown area again before finishing at the Velodromo (a facility originally built for the PanAm Games).

Coamo is not a big place, but it is the 3rd oldest town on the island. Predating Ponce on the south coast. The US fought the Spanish here in 1898 in the last battle of the Spanish American War, just prior to the surrender of Puerto Rico. OK, I digress with the history lesson…

The race does not actually start until 4:30PM so serious partying is going on, right up ’till then. A couple folks were still staggering into the road as the runners came by. Not very respectful, but in fairness, they were the exception… Most locals were off the road to watch and cheer on the runners. Our ‘stake-out’ was just after the highest point in the race. It was a toasty (86F high at 2:30PM) sunny Sunday (pinch me, it’s early February here)… Some of the runners were slinging sweat with every step. I’m not much of a spectator sports type person, but I do respect the effort and commitment it takes to make this ‘Hot Jog’. Maybe ‘Radio Coamo’ can help by encouraging folks to stay out of the runners’ way, once the race starts.  It couldn’t hurt. I listen to ‘Radio Coamo’ at 1450 AM, all the time (yes, I’m trying to learn some Spanish). You could hear it everywhere, up and down the road.

It took about 40 minutes for the front runners to pass our position. They were being lead by a huge escort of Coamo Police on motorbikes. Pretty impressive. Video crews on motorcycles were shooting the runners as they went by us. The partying moved into full gear once the last of the contestants trickled past. It went on until the wee hours of the morning. WooHoo!

I shot tons of pictures and some video of this ‘little’ event. I will post up the video in the near future. I did want to honor the runners with some of the shots I took so a separate page,

the Scurvy Dog’s Runners of Coamo 2010

is up and running.  Its done in basic HTML/CSS so I could add it to this post concurrently (gracias Nancy).  The images are not in any particular order and are really more of a ‘Best Of Shots Collection’. The page has over 30 (optimized for the Web) images so give it a little extra time to load.  I was shooting into the sun for most of the San Blas Marathon as can be seen by the forth-coming video. I feel most fortunate, I got the shots I got.

If you can help me add names to the runners photos,
I’ll gladly update the “Runners of Coamo 2010” page with them.

All in all, I had a great time! I made a few new friends, was never without a drink and had more food than I could possibly eat.

A Major ARRG from the Scurvy Dog!