Living in Grand Cayman

… for all of those Christmas lights we all love here in Cayman.  Once again, the usual suspects have put on quite a show for us. There is however a new player in town.   The property below is when driving east along the coast, near Spotts.  It is a house that was built a bit over a year ago and this year they are putting on quite a show.  Unfortunately though, like some of the other homes, we are not allowed on the property, so my pictures were limited from the street and between the bars of the gate.

This is the view from across the street.

Though the gate ; the driveway leading to the house.

Of course, there is the Creighton property. I have featured this house pretty much every year so far. I still look at it when driving past. I cant help but wonder though what this guys utility bill must be like.  🙂

Finally, I came upon a really nice promotional video for Cayman. Its a wedding promo video, but that does not matter 🙂  I REALLY like this video of Cayman. If this does not make you want to come to Cayman, I am not sure what will.

For those who have visited before, most of the sites in the video are easily identifiable. The only one that had me wondering is the scene with the lake and the lush forest/vegetation.  I had to think about it : it’s the botanical garden on Frank Sound Road in the East end!

This morning I had the privilege to run in the annual Cayman Islands Marathon … in fact I ran the 1/2 marathon (13.1 miles/21.1 km) ; my first one ever.

Although I cannot compare, I have to say that this event was really well organized!  The Cayman Islands marathon has been running (pun intended) since 2002.  This year, over 1000 runners (all categories – full marathon, half marathon and 4-team relay) took part ; a record for the event.

The course starts right downtown George Town at the Waterfront (top left of picture below). Then takes the runners south, along South Church Street though South Sound all the way to Prospect.  At Prospect we turn around at the half way mark and do +-7km along the same route before heading north on Walkers Road, into town and to the finish line.

Another view per the upload from my GPS running watch after the run.

To help us beat the Cayman heat, the race started at 5am!  That may seem early, but its a brilliant idea.  Quick 1/2 marathoners can finish the race right around sunrise while the full marathoners only have to cope with <2h of sun out of their race if they are fast enough.

For time tracking, all runners are issued a “chip” as seen below. (407 was by bib number)

It is about the size of a bottle cap and you integrate it to you shoe laces so not to lose it.   When passing though the start and finish lines, there are sensors that detect the chip and the total running time.  Quite nifty and reduces the likelihood of an error if someone were to manually take the time when runners arrive at the finish line.

Here is the finish line.  Lots of people cheering on the runners ; it was great.  Along the route, at the water stations, the volunteers also did a great job cheering us on and always had plenty of water and Gatorade on hand.

Here is my good friend (and office mate) Beth.  She won the women’s full marathon for the 4th time (not a typo) in a row.   A true force of nature. The following woman came in over 15 minutes later, which makes her win even more impressive.

So how did I do?  Well, here is the medal all the finishers get ; very nice.

I finished the half marathon in 1h41:44 – I am very pleased.  That places me 27th in a field of 520 half marathon runners.  Not bad for a guy who only started to run 5 months ago!

In conclusion, to all my runner friends and anyone out there reading this who would like to run with us, I highly recommend you consider coming to Grand Cayman in 2012 for the marathon which is always held the first Sunday of December.  The run in the dark is fun and definitely different, the atmosphere is friendly and the whole organization makes this a very pleasant event.  Not to mention early December is a great time to escape the cold if you are from the USA or Canada 🙂