La Clásica Candelaria celebrated its 36th birthday yesterday with more than 2000 athletes running its famous "flat and downhill" route. To be exact, 2628 people officially crossed the finish line yesterday in Paraíso de Cartago according to the event's official results. Here are some interesting statistics from the race:

Men continue to outnumber women. It's the trend in almost all races, although women have been closing the gap in recent years. Of yesterday's 2628 finishers, there were 1533 men (58%) and 1095 women (42%).

Men also confirmed that they are still a bit faster than women. The average time for all participants, men and women, to complete the 10.3 kilometer course was 59:25 (5:46 per kilometer). Men averaged 55:38 (5:24/km) and women 1:04:44 (6:17/km).

But where is the pack? What time does most people take? Well, the graph below can give you a good idea of how the pack is distributed according to the time it takes them to reach the finish. In any case, you should know that if your time was less than 58:43 you were in the faster half of the pack; if your time was more than 58:43 you were in the slower half (the important thing is to enjoy it, zero stress).

As shown in the graph, most runners came in within a 15-minute window between 50' and 1:05:00. Specifically the block between the 55' mark and the one-hour mark was the most crowded of all with 476 people finishing in those five minutes; almost 100 per minute and more than one person every second!!! On the other hand, only 72 people managed to break the 40-minute barrier and of those only 12 went under 35 minutes.

You can see the complete results and rate the raceHERE. If there's anything else you'd like to know, leave us a comment or write to us at info@abuenpaso.cr.