Living in Grand Cayman

As per my last post, James Murray was scheduled to run 100 miles starting Saturday morning and ending sometime on Sunday. I am pleased to report that he completed the run!  There was also a second runner, Gerry, who also completed the 100 mile trek about 1h later (it took them 31 and 32h respectively to complete).

I had the honor to spend +-15 km with them Sunday at 6am until around 10am.

Here is a picture taken just west of “east end” along Lover’s wall.  It was around 6:30-7am.  Nice and cool with the cloud cover.  James is the guy with the cap.  The others, just like myself, were along as “support team”.  There was a support van (and sometime someone with their SUV when the van had to go to the other runner for supplies) “shielding” us from other cars.   A very well organized event.   There was also a BBM (Blackberry) group where we were getting up to the minute updates as to where he was ; in essence, I knew exactly where he was when I headed out on Sunday morning.

Later on, near Bodden Town, a few more runners joined the effort.  The camaraderie between James and with all the other runners is the real story for me.   I had such a good time; meeting other runners, supporting James for the worthy cause (raising $ for diabetes) and of course keeping the BBM chat doing was a blast.   The last 20 miles or so there was walking, running and some breaks.  I am sure 99% of people would have quit.  This guy’s determination was remarkable even though you could tell he was dead tired after being on the road for over 24h not to mention he did not smell very good. haha!  When people in cars would honk with encouragement, he always gave the thumbs up and would even chit-chat with us which is impressive considering many people I know wont even chat with you during a casual 5km run.

Here is the grand finale at Camana Bay ; exactly where it all started the day before.  From the 2-3 runners with him in the morning, more than 20 people were with him at the end. Simply awesome.  It kind of reminds me of the scene in the movie Forrest Gump where where he is running across the country and everyone is following him 🙂

If you want to read more about the whole event, here is a link to a newspaper article that ran in today’s local newspaper.

http://www.compasscayman.com/caycompass/2011/11/29/Crazy-pair-ran-for-two-days/

This weekend, a guy I know (friend of many friends …) is doing a crazy thing in Grand Cayman ; let me tell you, this one seriously crazy idea.  He is running 100 miles (+-16o km ) starting Saturday morning and will likely finish sometime around 6am Sunday (almost 24 of running!!!)  Why would anyone ever do such a nutty thing?  Being a (novice) runner myself, I know how tough it is to run just 10km, so add 150km to that (100 miles is roughly 4 consecutive marathons), add the Cayman sun/humidity and you have one heck of a challenge.

So, why?  its to raise money and awareness for the Cayman Islands Diabetes Association.  (C.I.D.A).  Awesome idea.

Here is the route, mile by mile.  A much bigger picture can be seen on his website:

http://www.acrazyidea.com

The neat thing is that anyone can run the first 5km with him(sorta) on Saturday AM.  How : Saturday AM, in another fund raiser, there is the annual C.I.D.A 5km walk/run. James Murray  – the 100 mile man – will start off on that 5km run and of course continue on for another 155km while the rest of us head for the beach. I will be there running it ; only one week to go before the Cayman Islands marathon.

So if you are on island are driving around this Saturday, look out for a slow moving van driven by a redhead (Hi Lauren!) and a guy running in front of it with an orange bandana on his head.

If you would like to donate to this very worthy cause (or just for the fact that a guy is running 100 miles in one  session which on its own is pretty hard core …) you can do so here.

http://www.acrazyidea.com/donate

I recently had the privilege of spending a few days on the lovely island of Barbados.

I found the island to be somewhat similar to Cayman in terms of development and friendly people, it is however a much bigger island and also much further from Miami (a 3.5h flight) that I expected. Although I did not have a lot of time, I did get some time at the beach and to see a few local attractions.

First up, the beach near my hotel.  Very nice.

This was my favorite part on the beach.  Starting just a few hundred feet from my hotel, there was a boardwalk that was +-1/2mile long.  Awesome for an early morning jog.  Actually, at 6am this boardwalk was already full of walkers and runners enjoying the scenery.  I cant blame them.

View from the restaurant where I had lunch with some work colleagues.   Great view.

Did you know that the first rum ever produced (invented?) was from Barbados? I certainly did not.  Well, it turns out that the Mount Gay Rum company, which produces its rum entirely in Barbados started production in 1703. We got a nice visit of the facilities one evening as organized by our local office. Very nice.

Of course, we got to taste the various types of rum ; the main difference of the different types are the age/color.  When tasting them back to back you can really tell the difference.  That was some strong stuff 🙂

Finally, an evening at Bert’s sports bar. This place is owned by Eugene Melnyk, a Canadian expat who is also the owner of the Ottawa Senators hockey team.   There are TV’s all over the place to see the hockey games.  I was lucky enough to go on an evening where my home team, the Montreal Canadians were playing ; it was definitely “Hockey Night in Barbados” with nachos, pizza and local beer!  Awesome

Happy Halloween 🙂

This last Sunday, I had the opportunity to run in a 30km relay race (hence the 10-10-10).   A part from diving, I was not doing any sports and felt I should to something a bit more athletic to keep in shape.  I decided to take up running, which is something I did do a bit many years ago.   The great thing about running in Cayman is that there is a huge population of runners and there is a race almost (no kidding) every week-end from September though February (during summer its just too hot!)

This week-ends race started from lovely East End of Grand Cayman, more specifically at the Reef Resort. The course is essentially the whole “East end loop”.  So runners start at point A (see below), then run West (top of island) all the way to Frank Sound Road (Old Man Bay) and go south, crossing the entire island and then back to The Reef along the southern coastline.  Each runner does 10k out of the 30.  The race started at 6am, so the first runner had very little sun to deal with but this day there was virtually no wind and humidity was quite high. I was runner 2 and had decent shade since 5km was on Frank Sound Rd and there are large trees/bushes along that road.  The final runner had it tough ; to add to the no wind/high humidity, the sun was now out in force and right in their face. In case you are wondering, I ran my 10km (+-6.2 miles) in 48mins 10 seconds.

At the awards ceremony.  We were the second corporate team in.   Overall, we came in (I think) 6th team out of 14 teams (or something along those lines) Personally I am just happy to have run it; the trophy is just a bonus.  The guy in the middle the is Governor, Duncan Taylor, who is also a very good runner and won the 5km race.  In case you are wondering, the Governor is the formal head of state and is named by the Queen of England for a 4-year term.

There were a few visitors/tourists who ran the race. (There was also the option to run the whole 30k solo) So if anyone visiting Cayman wants to know if there will be a race where they are on island, here is a Website that lists and details all the upcoming runs.  There are a whole bunch coming up, so if you will be in Cayman anytime soon and want to run a race, you should have no problem finding one to participate in.

Here is the URL:  http://www.caymanactive.com/running

You can also follow them on Twitter for race announcements @CaymanActive

Well, Cayman dodged another few bullets. Rina went to Cancun and that other system (see previous post) just fizzed away.  The only effects we got here were lots and lots of rain. Not good for mosquitoes, but I guess that’s the lesser evil. This was a common sight from my office; the photo does not do it justice.  It was really coming down when I took this pic. Apparently, in the last week we received nearly 5 inches of rain.

After the rain, the puddles!  Here is our resident “CSI:Miami” hummer driving by 🙂

This morning I had an errand to run at Camana Bay.  For those who have never been, Camana Bay is a huge development project by our resident (and only one as far as I know) billionaire, Kenneth Dart.  It is a mix of businesses, retail stores, restaurants, a movie theater and residential units.  Its a great place for a business lunch, some shopping or to go for a movie in the evening.  There is also a very nicely made observation tower which gives you a view of the complex and Seven Mile Beach hotels at a distance.  The restaurants at Camana Bay are all very nice and there is also a “Books & Books” book store which is just as nice as an Chapters (for Canadian folk) or Barnes & Noble (for US folk).  Books are duty free in Cayman so prices are quite reasonable.  The movie theater also gets new movie releases at the same time as the rest of North America. So Camana Bay is so a great evening idea for residents and tourists alike. I must admit we don’t go here very often but probably should.

The whole complex is done in a very tasteful manner. Here is the view of one of the main “intersections”.

The observation tower is the structure on the right.

Going up in the observation tower ; there are amazing decorative mosaics.  Very nice.

Some up close detail of once of the murals.

View from the top.   In the distance is Seven Mile Beach.  At the extreme right you can see part of the Ritz Carlton.

If you want to see a live video of this view, there is a Webcam running.  Here is the link.

http://camanabay.com/webcam.html

Cool benches just outside the movie theater.

More posts coming soon …

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