Cruise to Run - Day 4

Thursday was one of the most wonderful days on the cruise.  We again skipped the group run and went on an all day excursion exploring the natural beauty of the island of Dominica.  This little volcanic island has some serious vertical scenery and amazing features.

 We snorkeled on the Champagne Reef (so named because it sits on the edge of some volcanic activity and the water bubbles from underneath you), visited the Emerald Pool, lunched at a beautiful research center in the mountains, and then visited Titou Gorge and Trafalgar Falls before returning to the ship.

 Those are several old cannons underneath Jeff!

 As our guide explained it, this is Dominica's erection tree.  With a ratio of 7 women to every man on the island, the men need to keep up their, ahem, energy, and so they boil the bark of this tree as a natural form of Viagra.

I'm pretty sure we were in bed by 8pm that night.  It was a long day!!!

Cruise to Run - Day 3

On Wednesday we arrived in Antigua.

 Jeff relaxed while I headed off for a 13k run to Fort Barrington and back.  At the turnaround, we climbed up to the Fort to take in some spectacular views!

 You can see Fort Barrington up on the hill below

 Alex loves me.

 See the teeny tiny people on the beach in the middle?  That's where I was a few photos back...

 Almost there!

 A quick run through the showers and we were off to explore the port town we docked at.

 Jeff and I were so proud of ourselves - on Wednesday night we managed to stay past midnight (the only time we managed that the entire cruise).  We danced at the big party on the deck and then moved on to the nightclub later.

 Gee, I have no idea who graffitied on the door of those Ottawa fans... :-)  (hint: it wasn't me)

Cruise to Run - Day 2

Tuesday found us sailing into port at Tortola (British Virgin Islands).  Jeff and I skipped the run for the day (to the top of the large hill on the left of the first photo) and hopped on a small boat that took us to a teeny island called Jost Van Dyke, which has virtually no roads or power, just beaches with bars.

As usual, dinner back on the ship at the end of the day was highly entertaining.

Cruise To Run - Days 0 and 1

I'm so sorry it's taken so long to blog again.  I had a week without any real internet access (and the miracle is I survived!) and then we got home and I have barely slept and been swamped in work and trying to catch up on the 1000+ (seriously) blog posts in my Google Reader rather than write my own.

On Sunday the 21st, we boarded a Princess cruise ship with a little group called Cruise to Run.  IM AZ buddies Alex and Susan had done this cruise several times and talked me into signing up last year.  Basically you go on a cruise with a bunch of crazy endurance athletes, do a little race on each island we stop at, have guest speakers (the amazing Sarah Reinertsen and Runners World's own Bart Yasso this year), drink a whole lot of alcohol and confound all the people who are just on the boat to eat their body weights in cream puffs and roast in the sun.

Let's get on this thing already!

We set sail after bedtime on Sunday night and woke up Monday morning pulling into the harbor on the island of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands!

 Most of the cruisers were still asleep as we disembarked for our first run of the trip.

 With Alex and Susan!

 St Thomas iguana

The St Thomas run was a 5k with an unusual format for determining the winners.  You had to submit your predicted time and run without any watches - the closest to the predicted time wins!  I had a super easy run on the schedule so I submitted 30:30 as my 5k time.  My finishing time?  30:24!  Just 6 seconds off.  Amazingly the top 10 were all within 4 seconds of their prediction.  Still, I was happy with it!

 After we cleaned up from the run and got breakfast, we were off to Magen's Beach on the other side of the island (a quick 15-20 minute hop).  There is no better way to recover from a run, I'm now convinced!

We got lots of open water swimming in while we were there too!

 View of the harbor coming back over the hill

 Monday night was also the first of the formal nights on the cruise, as well as a big free-booze C2R reception.  Par-tay!!

Another Adventure Begins...

Friday afternoon saw us saying goodbye to the California sun...

A couple of these on a layover set the tone for the trip.

And finally, almost 24 hours after we started, we ended up in a room with this view on Saturday afternoon.  It didn't suck.

From the other direction it looked like this.

This didn't suck either.

We spent Saturday evening catching up with old friends.

As well as doing the large amount of philosophizing that comes when 2x IM finishers gather.  Or we were just wondering how Alex grew that beard. :-)

 

Old San Juan (Puerto Rico) was beautiful to wander around in at night

And finally, 37 hours after I woke up in my own bed at 4:45 am for 5:30 Friday morning masters, we slept.

Today (Sunday) we pack up and leave on the next leg of our adventure, doing something that is very new for me!  Hopefully I'll have some internet access along the way...in the meantime, remember - Protect the Planet!