For three days in late August, Las Catalinas hosted a continental trail running championship, an off-road triathlon with 56 World Championship qualifying slots, and open water swims that pulled athletes from across the Americas. Then the weekend ended, and by Monday the same ice cream shop was scooping its summer flavor, the same Thursday mountain bike group was back on the same trails, and the same handful of storefronts that had opened in recent months were still open. Nothing about that sequence should surprise anyone who actually lives here. That is the point worth sitting with: XTERRA Costa Rica did not require Las Catalinas to become something it isn't for a weekend. It just asked the town to run its ordinary systems at a higher volume.
That is a different story than the one most race coverage tells, which is mostly about finish times and podiums. Those matter too, and this year's results gave the town something to talk about. But the more interesting fact for anyone who calls this place home is what the race weekend reveals about how the town actually operates day to day, not what it becomes for 72 hours.
The Trail Crew Shows Up Weeks Early
Course marking for XTERRA doesn't start with an outside events company parachuting in. It starts with Las Catalinas' own Agroforestry Department, the same team responsible for maintaining the town's trail network the other 362 days of the year. In the weeks before the 2026 race, the XTERRA organizing team met with that department to walk the routes, check conditions, and confirm which sections of trail would carry the marathon, the half marathon, and the mountain bike legs of the triathlon.
Once the first course markers went up, athletes who were already in town started pre-running and pre-riding sections of the route in the days before the event, which meant trail traffic picked up well before race day itself. That is a small detail, but it says something real: the infrastructure a world championship needs already exists here as a byproduct of ordinary trail maintenance. Nobody built anything new to host this. They used what was already being cared for.
The trail marathon route itself is not gentle. It climbs 972 meters over technical terrain that mixes dirt, loose gravel, and rocky sections, the kind of course that punishes anyone who hasn't studied it. That's the same terrain locals ride and run on any given week, just organized into a race day format.
The Expo Used the Gym You Already Know
Race weekend logistics ran through buildings residents already use for other things. Package pickup and Kids Run registration happened at Center of Joy, the fitness studio where residents normally take exercise classes. The English-language trail running briefing was held at Brewhouse. The expo itself was staged at Conservatory Hotel Santarena and Plaza Danta, both places that function as ordinary gathering points in town on any given week.
Here's roughly how the weekend broke down:
- Friday afternoon: expo opens at Santarena and Plaza Danta, race packages go out at Center of Joy, trail briefing at Brewhouse
- Friday evening: Alistair Brownlee leads a Golden Social Run to open the weekend
- Saturday before dawn: trail races start at 4:30 a.m., covering distances from the 5.5K up through the full trail marathon
- Saturday afternoon: Kids Run
- Sunday morning: open water swims at Playa Danta, followed by the sprint and full triathlon events
None of that required a temporary venue built for the occasion. It used the town's existing footprint, scaled up.
The Podium Had a Local Accent
This year mattered more than the previous two editions because the trail marathon and half marathon served as the first XTERRA Americas Trail Run Championship held in Costa Rica. Costa Rican runners swept the continental titles. José Manuel Venegas Romero, Laura Murillo, Pedro Chacón, and Priscila Solís Rojas all claimed titles on Saturday, with Murillo winning the women's trail marathon in 3 hours 43 minutes 33 seconds and Chacón taking the men's half marathon title in 1:58:59. Priscila Solís Rojas won the women's half marathon championship in 2:22:33, with Gabriela Calderón Rojas finishing second.
Sunday's triathlon brought its own storylines. Sullivan Middaugh, 22 and racing in Las Catalinas for the first time, won the men's full distance title, part of a strong showing by the Middaugh family of Eagle-Vail, Colorado. His brother Porter placed fourth and their father Josiah, the 2015 XTERRA World Champion, finished fifth, putting all three inside the men's top five. On the women's side, Costa Rica's Raquel Solís led from the swim and held on to win her third consecutive full distance title at Las Catalinas, following victories in 2024 and 2025, finishing in 2:52:42 ahead of Suzie Snyder of Avon, Colorado and Germany's Lorena Erl.
Alistair Brownlee's presence added weight to the weekend too. One of the sport's most recognizable names opened the event by leading Friday's Golden Social Run before racing himself on Sunday.
Thursday Never Stopped
Here's what the race weekend didn't interrupt. The town's Thursday mountain bike group, known as Juevones, kept meeting on schedule to ride the same technical climbs and descents that make up sections of the XTERRA course. A trail runner had a white faced monkey cross the path on Sendero E during an ordinary run, a reminder that the tropical dry forest bordering town doesn't pause for a race calendar either. Coquelicot, the town's ice cream shop, was still serving its new melon and lemon flavor through the same weeks the trail markers went up.
None of that is race coverage. It's just what a normal week looks like here, and the fact that it kept happening on schedule around an international sporting event says more about how the town functions than the finish line times do.
The same pattern showed up a month earlier, in a different register. Guanacaste Nights, the town's annual culinary weekend, ran July 24 through 26 with a sunset dinner at Sentido Norte, a street food fair in town, and a free farmers market to close it out. Different crowd, different rhythm, same underlying fact: the town's restaurants and public plazas absorbed a multi-day event using their normal footprint rather than importing outside infrastructure.
The Storefronts Kept Opening Too
Town development didn't slow down for race season either. Pintacafé opened its doors in town, bringing color and creativity with it and a new way to slow down in Las Catalinas. Ambitec moved from a showroom preview into a full opening in Building 71 at La Rambla, ready to receive residents and builders. Further back, Medired Urgent Care opened in December 2025 with a physician on-site Monday through Saturday and services that include house calls and ambulance coordination. Coraline opened in January 2026 with chocolate and wine tastings, and Noilys followed in February with custom interior finishing work, tucked into the lower level of Central next to D'Aquí Design.
None of that has anything to do with triathlon logistics. It's just the ordinary churn of a small town adding services one storefront at a time, on a schedule that has nothing to do with race weekend and everything to do with the town's own pace of growth.
What the Race Weekend Actually Proves
Put those threads together and the picture that emerges isn't about triathlon logistics at all. It's about what a town has to already be true for a global sporting event to slot into it without friction. Las Catalinas didn't build a stadium or bus in outside staff. It used its trail maintenance crew, its fitness studio, its plazas, and its restaurants, the same infrastructure that supports an ordinary Tuesday, and simply ran it at full capacity for three days.
That's worth remembering the next time XTERRA season rolls around, or the next time a food festival takes over the same plazas for a different reason. The event changes. The muscle underneath it doesn't.
If you're curious about what else is happening in Las Catalinas beyond race weekends and festival calendars, Miles & Co keeps a close eye on the town's rhythm year round. Let's Connect.
