---
title: "Run Before the Boom"
published: 2016-03-04
updated: 2026-08-04
category: "De todo un poco"
source: "https://dev-abp.massivoai.com/en/articles/correr-antes-del-bum"
---

# Run Before the Boom

**There was a time, not so long ago, when people ran for the sheer pleasure of running. What madness! They went to races like children to a birthday party; with the excitement of discovering, hopefully, a new route and the desire to perform well and enjoy themselves.**

They had only a pair of sneakers in the closet, and in many cases they weren't sneakers designed for running. For some strange reason, however, they didn't get injured as much as they do now.

They gratefully received water at the races and were satisfied with a hydration station at 10 kilometers. If there were more than two aid stations, they would look at each other in bewilderment and wonder why so much water if it was only 10k...

The starts were a blast. A line was marked on the street, sometimes with chalk, sometimes with tape, and other times with a stick if the race was on gravel road. And amid cordial laughter and encouraging pats on the back, the runners lined up in order behind the small mark. There were no big start arches, no ribbons, no announcers, no chips. Nor were they needed either; runners back then didn't need them. Maybe a cumbia playing from an old radio near the start to get the heart racing, but nothing more.

And the pack of 100 would take off, maybe 250 people if the race was somewhat known or 500 if it was one of the Top 5 in the country. Most were dressed in cotton shirts that had become thin from so much use and hopefully already had little holes for better ventilation. Others ran in more modern-looking tank tops, but God forbid Dry Fit—that terminology wasn't known back then.

Registration (let's talk about the late 90s and early 2000s) cost between ¢1500 and ¢3000 and included the shirt (cotton of course), the medal, and assistance. If it didn't include it, no big deal—the thing was to run. Excessively expensive races started to charge ¢5000, but that was already considered an abuse.

Most races opened registration two or three days before and on the day of the event itself. If the race was very large, like Candelaria or Sol y Arena, registration would open a week before and you'd generally leave the store with the package in hand (medal included in some cases). Other races preferred to hand out packages on the day of the event, and it happened without major lines or delays.

There was no Facebook or Twitter or websites as cool as A Buen Paso (hehe). Runners found out about other races by picking up thousands of flyers at the finish line or maybe from an announcement at sports stores, among which Centro Sport was an authority. The newspaper was another good source of information, as it would publish a story about the event the day before, and of course there was still time to register.

Upon crossing the finish line, you received a medal—oh, the medal! That little keepsake that runners of old used to store in some humble drawer just to keep track of everything they'd run. It typically had a thin string in the colors of the Costa Rican flag, more than enough to hang around your neck (what else for?), and the relief barely legible with the date and name of the race. That's what the medal was like; no colors, no frills, no fancy decorations. And nobody cared.

Then came the boom.** **

A Buen Paso uses [Massivo](https://massivoai.com), the event-registration platform that powers this article.