Running Around The World

Tapachula: an unlikely running town

Tapachula, Chiapas is a border town in the southernmost part of Mexico. The city sits about fifteen kilometers from the Mexico/Guatemala border with a population of just over 320,000 people. Tapachula doesn’t see many tourists, but it does frequently make headlines for the large caravans of migrants passing through on the way to the United States.

Due to the lack of tourists, a lot of the western health and fitness trends that have made their way to other cities around Mexico, have not yet made it down to Tapachula. One of my favorite examples of this is – vegetarianism. In Tapachula, if you ask at a restaurant for something vegetarian – you will be laughed at. In recent years, the city has been adding more and more, having just opened a Starbucks and not long before that adding a Walmart and Sam’s club with plenty of gluten free and healthier options. However, they still have a long ways to go.

Because of the lack of ‘westernization,’ it came as a bit of a surprise the amount that running plays a role in the lives of Tapachultecos. The city sees a year round average temperature of about 85 degrees, but with an average humidity upwards of 70% and no escape from the sun, it feels much hotter than that. On a day to day basis, you rarely see any runners out on the streets – however, on the weekends, you can find hundreds of people lined up to race in one of the local 5Ks.

If you are looking for a weekend sporting activity while in Tapachula, you can find a local 5K race just about any weekend of the year. The races are not chip timed and are often just over or under their advertised distance, but they are well organized with police escorts and medals for finishers. Most races also come with prize money for the winners, but if not, you at least get bragging rights. As a runner in Tapachula, it would be possible to make a living winning races each weekend. With inscription fees being no more than one hundred pesos and prize money being upwards of 1000 pesos for the winner, it is definitely possible. For the men, you have to be pretty fast to come in top three as there is a lot of competition out there. For the women, it’s a bit easier – you have to run somewhere around a low twenty minute 5K to be top three. You will sometimes find a race which offers prize money to the top three overall (always three men) rather than for gender – the fight for “equal play, equal pay” hasn’t made it down this far just yet.

In addition to the weekly 5K races, there are also several running clubs in the area. There are quite a few locally in Tapachula that appear at most of the events, however there are also teams from neighboring areas such as Huixtla and Tuxtla Chico that regularly compete in the races. When the prize money increases significantly, you will also see runners come in from Guatemala. Leaving myself and local runners absolutely no chance at the prize money.

Tapachula isn’t built as a running city, and perhaps that plays into why you don’t often see runners in the streets. As mentioned before, the sun and the heat play a huge part of that. In addition, the sidewalks are not pedestrian friendly – they are uneven and if you don’t watch above and below you at the same time you are likely to trip or hit your head on something (assuming you are taller than about 5’7″). Running in the road is a possibility, although also a risk. Drivers are known to be a bit out of control at times. Don’t tell my family, but I find myself running in the streets and being assertive is what gets me by, but not everyone may be willing to risk it.

I find myself repeating a similar route each day as that is what’s most conveniently available. Depending on whether you run the route forwards or backwards, the hills will treat you differently, so it’s easy to get varying terrain. It is essentially a lap around the central part of town – from Calle 17a to Central Norte to Central Oriente around in a “square,” or whatever you want to call the figure below. It equals out to be just over four miles.

If you look at my Strava, you may think that’s the only place to run – it’s not. There are a few other places designed specifically for running that I’ve had the chance to visit.

Los Cerritos

Los Cerritos is a sports park in the northeastern part of the city. At the park you can find soccer fields, basketball courts, playgrounds and most importantly (in my opinion) a running track. It is not a running track like we would see in the States – with eight lanes and in a perfect 400m oval. It is track material that spans around the outside of the park and ends up being about a kilometer around. It is also relatively well shaded so you don’t have to worry about the sun beating down on you as you “enjoy” your workout.

Centro Running Track

There is also a running track just past centro, a bit closer to where I am based. The running track is again, very different from what we would see in the US. This one is a straight, kilometer long, track material on a raised platform following the river. The track is mostly unused as it is not shaded so the sun hits quite hard if you go in the middle of the day. One thing I do like about this track, however, is the lovely view of the volcano you get if you go early in the morning. If you look close enough at the photo below, you can see a faint outline of it.

Altitude and Hills/Mountains

If you want to get in some hillwork, you are in luck! The nearby volcano, Volcán Tacaná, albeit a bit farther of a commute, provides some great mountain running. A two hour collectivo (public transport) ride will get you to cooler air, altitude and some serious vertical. There are plenty of waterfalls to visit, or my personal favorite is running from Unión Juarez to Talquián (the last town before the volcano hiking trail begins). If you are a true expert and are looking to conquer a real challenge – you can run up the volcano. I hope to attempt this one day, but with a lot of training first – hiking it is fine for now.

Tapachula is definitely not your typical running town, but as you can see, there are plenty of options for the novice to expert runner. Any route you choose around town, you can find some sneaky hills mixed in there that you may not even feel are there until you realize you are exhausted. And if you want to avoid the sun and heat, you can find several local gyms around town with treadmills.

Volcán Tajumulco

Last month I found myself on top of Central America. This was the second volcano I have climbed since arriving in Mexico – here’s some info on how I got there.

How We Got There?

We came in from Tapachula, Mexico, so it wasn’t a far journey. This created some issues though, because we had to spend seventy-two hours outside of Mexico before we would be allowed to return. The hike would definitely not take us that long from everything we’d read on the internet.

On day one, we traveled from Tapachula to Talisman, the border town about thirty minutes away. We crossed the border in Talisman which was a quick and painless process. From Talisman we traveled to Malacatán where we caught a chicken bus to San Marcos. We decided to spend the night in San Pedro (the town just outside of San Marcos) in order to get acclimated to the altitude. San Pedro had its fair share of cute restaurants around town – providing a slightly western feel compared to what we were used to.

On day two, we made our way to the San Marcos bus terminal where we took another chicken bus to crucero Tajumulco. When we arrived at the terminal, we asked the drivers where we needed to go and they pointed us in the right direction. The bus ride was about an hour and we got dropped right at the start of the hike.

The Hike

The hike begins with a walk up a paved road and past a set of houses. After the houses, the road turns to loose dirt (this was not enjoyable on the descent as we kept twisting our ankles) and leads straight towards the volcano, which you can see just in front of you as you begin the walk. We figured the dirt road was recently extended as all of the blogs from 2016 and earlier made no mention of it going past the (old) trailhead. You can now follow the road up and around to a “parking lot.” This is where the trailhead officially begins and the last point you can access by car. The hike is a pilgrimage site, so from here it is pretty well marked out and easy to follow. The dirt road takes you all the way up to a flat plane – part two of the hike we would have for day one.

The next part of the hike is pretty flat and a nice break before things start to get a bit more difficult. By this point, we were above the clouds and starting to feel the effects of the altitude. After the flat, the trail started to gradually get steeper and steeper.

Once we passed the flats, that was when the hike started to really get hard – part three of the first day’s hike. It was about two hours from there to the campsite. As we hiked the last leg, we all started to get a bit discouraged. I kept thinking we had made it to the campsite or even past it, but I would later find that I was very wrong. My pack weighed about 50lbs and all I wanted to do was put it down so I was ready to be done for the day. The last part of the hike was the steepest, but it was the altitude that was really getting to us at this point.

We finally made it to the campsite – according to the blogs we had seen, this wasn’t the official spot for camping, but we felt it would be blocked from the wind compared to the other spots we saw. It was surrounded on three sides by the mountain whereas the other spots were a lot more open and had a few trees surrounding it.

By the time we got to the campsite it was about 5pm – we started our hike just after 12pm so in total it took us about five hours with a stop for lunch. By this point, the clouds had rolled in and the wind was whipping. There were some hikers that had come up right after us looking to hit the summit for sunset. While we set up camp, we wished them luck making it to the top. When they came down, they admitted to us that it was a miserable experience – they were freezing and they couldn’t find the summit as the cloud cover was so thick.

After dinner, a fire and some music – we headed to bed early. The next morning we woke up at 4am to hike to the summit for sunrise. This part of the hike was about an hour and we tried to time it so we wouldn’t be sitting in the cold for too long. The hike to the summit was again a pretty easy path to follow as it’s lined with crosses (due to the pilgrimages). The footing was difficult and there were a lot of loose rocks along the path with some steep jumps up you had to make. We soon arrived to an opening with a peak on either side – to the left was the summit, to the right was a false summit. We went to the actual summit first and later explored the false summit on our way down.

The view from the summit was absolutely stunning. The clouds formed a waterfall over the mountains below us and as the sun came up, it was beautiful. On the other side, we could see Volcán Tacaná and as the sun rose, you could see the shadow of the volcano we were on, reflecting in the distance. They were some of the most incredible views I have seen in a long time.

I much preferred spending the night and hiking up for sunrise – it seemed to me that in the afternoon, the cloud cover was just too thick and I think we would have been very disappointed as we wouldn’t have seen much.

What I Packed

In terms of warm clothing – I was wearing two sweatshirts, a rain coat, a long sleeve shirt and a t-shirt on top plus two socks (one long, one short), leggings and joggers on bottom. I was not cold in my sleeping bag overnight, but sitting around outside, I was pretty cold. We had sleeping bags rated for 20F and they worked quite well. It did not rain on us, but we strapped a tarp over the top of our tent to try to block out as much wind as possible.

I took up 10L of water, but only drank around 6-8L of that. I tend to drink a lot of water so I packed extra just in case. I also took Nuun electrolyte tablets with me to pop in my water when I was feeling like I needed it. As far as keto foods that I took with me, I had salami, nuts, avocados and peppers. I didn’t find myself to be that hungry up on the top so I didn’t end up eating very much.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, the hike was incredible. The views from the top were well worth all the effort. Comparing this hike to Volcán Tacaná (the second tallest peak in central America) – it was much easier. The hike was much shorter and starts out much higher than Tacaná. Spending the night at altitude before beginning definitely helped us get acclimated. It was a wonderful experience!

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