December is here and what does that mean? First, a very quiet hurricane season is over which is great news. Second, its time for the Cayman Islands Marathon which is always the first Sunday of December. Its been quite rainy recently so fingers were crossed that we not have any rain on the race day. Thankfully we did not 🙂
At the race packet pickup on Saturday, the day before the race. The whole process was done with military efficiency. I was in & out in under 3-minutes. The organizers have got this drill figured out. So many volunteers also.
The countdown clock was prominently placed showing us how much time we had before the start of the race the next morning. Not much time left to get ready.
This is where we will all be at 5am the next morning for the start of the race. The race organizers do the setup in the middle of the night which is quite impressive. Pasta dinner (see next picture) was on the balcony at Breezes – where the “Pizza” sign is.
Of course the obligatory pasta loading meal the evening before. Had two of these 🙂
Here is the path we ran, a full 21.1km (over 13 miles). On the way back, the massive humidity hit all of the runners. For December, the very high humidity as we have in summer, is somewhat surprising. There were unfortunately a lot of runners that dropped out and a few who were treated for dehydration. It was definitely a tough race for everyone! At the bottom of the picture is my pace as recorded by my GPS running watch. Fairly constant and as expected slowly … getting slower as the race progressed.
So what happened? I finished in a slightly slower time than last year for the Half-Marathon in 1h42 minutes. That placed me 28th overall for over 820 runners. Considering the tough conditions i’m happy 🙂
On another note, the Christmas lights are out and plentiful. This large property in South Sound has decorated all of the palm trees. Makes for a lovely sight.
This other house is an absolute delight. So many lights and things to see. this one is defintely my favorite. Anyone looking for this place, its along South Church St in South Sound – near Sunset House. If you are in the right place, “you can’t miss it” 🙂
So another half-marathon done. A part from some more rain today, December weather is here (23 degrees this AM) which is nice. The need for aircon is not as high. I have even driven with windows open recently ; so nice.