Living in Grand Cayman

Once again this year I took part in what is quickly becoming a tradition, in the annual Cayman Islands Marathon.   I do not run the full Marathon (26.2 miles) ; I run the 1/2 Marathon (13.1 miles) which I am sure you will agree is more than enough.

As always, the race is on a Sunday morning and it starts at 5am!  So I got up at +-3am, went to my office for 3:45am (its close to the start line) and “took it easy” till around 4:30 and then walk to the start line to get there 15 minutes or so before the start.  The running in the dark is really enjoyable.  Of course much less hot than in full sun and adds a bit of mystique to the whole event.

So, here we are at the start line ; Julie’s friend Valerie also ran it. It was her first 1/2 Marathon.  Julie was supposed to run, but a nasty cold got the best of her and it was probably better not to run that kind of a distance when sick.

Note that i have 2 bibs on my shirt.  Here is the story.  The top one (green lettering) is for the 1/2 Marathon.  The lower one (red letters) is for a 4-man team relay.   On Thursday a friend of mine called me and told me that they needed a runner due to a cancellation. (needs to be a team of 4 and they were 1-down)  The organizers allow runners to run the 1st leg of the relay + their own race; so essentially you are not running any more than you would be already. The only difference is at the halfway point of the 1/2 Marathon I had to hand over the “chip” to the next relay man, he starts running and I also continue on my way to finish my 1/2 Marathon.  Was that clear? 🙂

Anyway, so we are off into the darkness!  I am somewhere in this mess. The first 200-300 meters are a bit chaotic but very quickly people find their pace and it thins out.

Here is one of the water stops. All of them are staffed with volunteers and many of them are corporate groups.  My favorite though is the water stop of the Indian community.  They have traditional music and clothes and all kinds of cheering going on.  Very fun to run by their stop and get a drink.

After the run, runners have access to a well deserved food area; lots of fruit, granola bars, water, Gatorade, etc.

What I assume is somewhat of unique to the Cayman Marathon … Caybrew is there to serve up some of their great tasting beers for finishers.  Many of us are done before 7am so its an interesting concept.  That beer the gentleman is pouring is mine.   I just burned a ton of calories before most people got out of bed on this Sunday morning, so why not right?

Here is the finishers medal! I also got one for the team relay.  This medal is really heavy and of nice quality.

So, how did I do?  I am pleased to report that “quite well” would be an appropriate answer.  Out of 726 runners, I came in 35th overall at a time of 1h41 minutes.  A bit better than in 2012 and almost identical time (few seconds difference from 2011).

On the relay part, this is where I am getting a bit of a kick.   The team I ran for (and was a replacement runner as explained earlier) was a team of guys from Kenya – if you know anything about running in that part of the world is that the runners are really fast.  Well, I “beat” my 3-teammates (I got the best time of all 4 of us) and our team finished 10th out of 108 teams. Not bad at all.  A very successful day I would say.

Julie’s friend Valerie also did well.  She placed 128th overall and 34th women (out of 418) which is excellent, especially for her first 1/2 marathon.

Here is the course! The whole bottom part is essentially two directions.  You go along the coast all the way to the right, then back toward town and then up Walkers Road (the path not on the ocean) and then to the Start/Finish.

What does one do after such a run: Hit the beach of course.  We all went to Cemetery beach for some much deserved sun bathing, snorkeling and relaxing.   The day was lovely.  Just 2-3 days ago, there was good chance that we would be running in the rain. I was not thrilled by that idea.  Anyway, the awesome Cayman weather came though and so did the afternoon at the beach.

Once again, the 2013 Hurricane season was a complete no-show.  Interestingly the so called experts always say, at the beginning of the season that it will be an “active hurricane season”.  Well, not a single system made it into the Caribbean basin and of course nothing ever bothered us.  Lets keep it that way!

So we have a guest ; a good friend of Julie’s with us this week.  She will also run the 1/2 marathon which is tomorrow (Sunday AM)  Of course, being great hosts, we have been doing the rounds and seeing the sights.  Its actually fun since many of the places we take guests, we don’t often go on our own.  A bit like asking a New-Yorker when was the last time they went up the Empire State building I guess.

One of the stops : Camana Bay.  A lovely place to stroll around and spend some time. At the waterfront there is an artificial island (behind the girls …) which is really nice.

Next is Spotts beach.  Valerie & I did some snorkeling and saw 8 (yes eight …) turtles during a 45 minute outing.  Awesome.  If you don’t get too close, they will just do their thing while you float and watch them.

Here are the two lovely ladies enjoying the beach!

As a final note, I have noticed many new solar projects being done around the island.  First, here is a large solar array at Camana Bay,

This second one is the most impressive though. A local bank is covering a whole parking lot with solar panels. It also dubs as a covered car park for the employees.  Apparently these panels will generate almost enough power for their whole building.  Impressive and bravo to management for this project.

Marathon report in the next post likely very soon! Wish me luck 🙂

Well, it turns out that I was not imagining things with that storm system we had yesterday.  It also turns out that some much more competent photographers had their cameras pointed towards the sky.

I saw the below picture on my Facebook feed … WOW! I promptly asked the photographer, Courtney Platt, for permission to post his amazing picture here.  Note the picture is a “time lapse”, so those lightning strikes were not all at the same time.  This picture are the strikes seen over about 20 minutes.

To see the full size picture of the above, simply click on it.

For other really nice pictures of Cayman by Courtney, click the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/CourtneyPlattPhotography

Late this afternoon we were treated to a great light show … lightning that is.   WOW.   Very loud and very bright.  More than any other place I have ever been, I find the storm systems we have in Cayman to be extremely powerful.  They pack a serious punch of “BOOM”.  If its close enough, its enough to scare lots of people.  Dogs also do not appreciate these.  I for one really enjoy this natural spectacle.  Do you?

This afternoons storm was particularly intense and I managed to get some pictures.

Here is one good zap!

The aftermath … an intense white flash that lit everything up.

and another zap.

The whole thing lasted about one hour and surprisingly very little rain.  The darkest parts of this system were south of us, so over the ocean.

Amazingly, this pics was taken just a hours before.  Nice and sunny!  Clear skies and calm sea.  I went diving this morning with two friends of mine near the Turtle farm; a place called by locals as “Macabuca” .   We even saw four turtles swimming around.  The water is still a very comfortable 85 degrees ; note no one is wearing a wet suit.

I think we can put today in the “awesome day” category. 🙂

One again this year, I ran the Halloween 10-10-10 relay race.  There is something about running in the East End, a place close to my heart that really pleases me.   Maybe its the great scenery, maybe the lack of cars on the road on a Sunday morning, it could the camaraderie of doing a relay race or maybe its simply that the runners that make it out east, at the crack of dawn on Sunday are all running enthusiasts who love the sport.   Whatever it is, this race is one I will definitely run every year!

In the first two years of this run, I did legs 2 and then 1.  This year I did the 3rd and what I think is the toughest leg.  The reason its the toughest is that the sun is up and you are running face to it and the wind usually is also in your face.  We had both of those this morning! 🙂  The good part about the 3rd leg is that its the last one and you do not have to wait around for your teammates to finish the race.  One interesting thing I noted is that there are a few slopes/hills in the road around the eastern part of the island .. who knew!  I thought it was perfectly flat.

Alright … here I am in action!  Thumbs up, so all is going well.  Probably 1/2 done here.  Legs seem kind of white, I need to get outside more.

After the finish with my teammates Gautam & Dan … two other Canadians.  Its no wonder why we called our team the “KPMG Canucks”. Great race guys … it was a pleasure to have you as teammates. Dan (guy on the right) ran the full Chicago Marathon just 2-weeks ago, so I am quite impressed that he is already back running races so soon after running 42km.

Thumbs up … we did not win any prizes but our team did very well in the overall standings.

So here is the path I ran. Starting at the bottom part and essentially running the entire eastern point of the island.  My two buddies ran the other part of the loop which started at the red marker and went towards the left, down the road the crosses the island and back along the coast towards the start/finish line.

Oh, although we did not win any competitive prizes, I did win one of the random prizes … 2-nights at The Reef Resort, which sponsors the race and where the start/finish line is.   Sweet!  A week-end with Julie sometime in the East End. 🙂

Here is the spot!

http://www.thereef.com/en/index.html