{"id":2636,"date":"2014-03-09T16:30:29","date_gmt":"2014-03-09T21:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/?p=2636"},"modified":"2014-03-09T16:37:12","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T21:37:12","slug":"off-the-beaten-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/?p=2636","title":{"rendered":"Off The Beaten Track"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two week-ends ago I had the opportunity to run in the annual “Off the beaten track” run.<\/p>\n

This is definitely an “odd ball” run. \u00a0It is a 50km (+31 miles) run. The race, as it is called, definitely goes off the beaten path and into parts unknown of Cayman. \u00a0The whole concept is based on a race in the Sahara (“Marathon des Sables”) which the organizers attempt to replicate with a local flavor. \u00a0Part of the race is ran on the beach I guess because of the link to the Sahara.<\/p>\n

Ok, so the 50km race can be ran solo or in teams of 6. \u00a0I chose to run in a team ; 50km is way to much for me. \u00a0The race starts at 6am Sunday and I was lucky to get the 1st leg where the sun had not yet risen so its still not too hot.<\/p>\n

Oh … I have not mentioned it yet. \u00a0Each leg (there are 6 @ +-8.3km per runner) is only somewhat marked and the runner needs to know where s\/he is going. \u00a0It is quite easy to get lost. (I know of someone who ran a whole extra mile for nothing. \u00a0haha) \u00a0On my leg, there were 2 barbed wire fences to climb over, a field with cows (and cow pats …) as well as some muddy areas. \u00a0That being said, I went the day before and did my leg on a mountain bike so to be sure I was not one of those who would get lost.<\/p>\n

Here are some pics I took the day before. As you will see, it is definitely not on a beaten path.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20140222-00136\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There was a small lake to go around at one point!<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20140222-00137\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We then had to run +-1km along this fence. \u00a0There were numerous thorny bushes and cow pats which were almost strategically placed for the runners.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20140222-00138\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I saw this cute \u00a0fellow when I went to check out the path. \u00a0No sign of the cow at 6am though!<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20140222-00140\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So here was my run on the GPS watch. It started at the bottom part near the ocean on Beach Bay Drive (that is close to Bodden Town)<\/p>\n

Then it headed north and from where you see the “4” to just after the “6” that was all in the fields, dirt paths and barbed wire fences. Just after 8 is the hand-off to the next runner in my team.<\/p>\n

\"otbt\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After the race (the finish was at Tiki Beach on Seven Mile beach) we were all treated to a lovely breakfast for our efforts. Great place for a snack don’t you think?<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20140223-00142\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Here is the medal we all got. Quite original ; kind of like a military dog tag.<\/p>\n

\"IMG-20140223-00143\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And finally my team (one is missing in action) \u00a0Sorry Ruan!<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did we do? We came in a very respectable 21st out of 58 teams. \u00a0Good job team.<\/p>\n

Definitely will do this race again next year. \u00a0 Lots of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two week-ends ago I had the opportunity to run in the annual “Off the beaten track” run. This is definitely an “odd ball” run. \u00a0It is a 50km (+31 miles) run. The race, as it is called, definitely goes off the beaten path and into parts unknown of Cayman. \u00a0The whole concept is based on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-living-in-cayman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2636"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2651,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2636\/revisions\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/micho.org\/cayblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}