Racing in Tamarindo: The Beach Marathon and the New Triathlon

Tamarindo holds two endurance events a year and they have almost nothing in common. One is an eighteen-year-old Costa Rican institution that starts in the dark and sells out. The other is a brand-new international triathlon that has never been run. If you are searching for "the Tamarindo marathon" you may well mean either, so here is what each actually is.

The practical upshot: the marathon is the one you have to plan a year ahead for, and the triathlon is the one you can still enter.

The 2026 edition was the eighteenth, held on Saturday 5 September. Start and finish sit in front of the Hotel Tamarindo Diriá, with the course running inland in the direction of Huacas. Five distances are offered — 5k, 10k, 21k, 30k and 42k — and the three long ones go off together at 4:00am, with the 5k and 10k following a few minutes later.

That start time is the single most important thing to understand about this race, and it is not eccentricity. Sunrise in Tamarindo on 5 September is 5:32am, with first light at 5:12am. A four o'clock gun means the marathon field runs its first seventy-two minutes in genuine darkness and does not see the sun until it is an hour and a half in.

Entry was ¢32,500 for the 5k and 10k and ¢42,500 for the 21k, 30k and 42k. What that buys is more than a number: an official Adidas shirt, an event accessory, a medal, insurance, race hydration, electronic timing, a pasta dinner and the awards ceremony — with a separate finisher shirt reserved for the marathon distance. It is organised by GSX Group; A Buen Paso handles entries as ticket distributor only.

The Tamarindo Triathlon is set for Sunday 15 November 2026 — Alpha Win Racing's first event outside the United States, produced with ADI Tamarindo and sanctioned by FeuTri, Costa Rica's national triathlon federation. Three formats are offered.

The Open distance is worth pausing on, because it is unusually short and the minimum age is seven. A 100-metre swim, a three-mile bike and a one-mile run is a format a reasonably fit child or a complete first-timer can finish, which makes this a rare thing: a destination triathlon a whole family can enter on the same morning. Every finisher gets a medal, and the organiser uses traffic-control signs on the bike and run courses.

One date detail that matters more than it looks: 15 November is high season. Sunset in Tamarindo that day is 5:18pm, the dry season is arriving, and the town is filling up. That is the opposite of the marathon's early-September slot, when Tamarindo is quiet and rooms are cheap. Book accommodation for the triathlon the way you would for any November weekend here, which is to say early.

Both events take over the middle of a small town for a morning, and it is worth knowing which morning. The marathon is the more disruptive of the two despite being the smaller event, because the 4am start means hotel corridors come alive at three and the finish area in front of the Diriá is busy by six. If you are a light sleeper with a room near the beach road, that is a weekend to know about in advance.

The upside is real, though. Race weekends bring a crowd that eats early and books tours for the days either side, and the town has an atmosphere it does not have in an ordinary week. If your trip happens to overlap, the sensible move is to plan your own activities for the afternoon rather than the morning — our guide to things to do in Tamarindo covers what fills a race-day afternoon well.