›  Admin
  add this
Friday July 30 2010
 

Training in the Bahamas

Printer friendly version Posted on: Wednesday April 29 11:00:38 AM
Training in the Bahamas I have arrived safe and sound from the Bahamas. It was a great weekend I am sorry to say but it is good to be home and with family. 

At this point in my training, it was tough to be away for a weekend in Bahamas and have to behave. On the whole, I managed to be good, but day one was rough. I Mean how can you avoid getting caught up in the fun when you are handed a Bahama Mama upon arrival to Sandals Royal Bahamian?

So day one consisted mostly of free time and by dinner, a large percentage of the 60 Flight Centre crew were already in '2ND gear party mode'. Actually, several were in 3rd gear and racing toward full speed! I made the mistake of not drinking enough water throughout the day. By dinner time I was at my worst (best?) and coasted from there. Apparently I had a brief nap at dinner - but  don't remember that! I had hoped to remain sane enough to get up early and run before the conference started. I was scheduled for 23K. In the morning, I was in no shape for a long run. Now, I did give it an honest try. I woke up 6, was out the door by 6:30 but after 5 minutes decided I was not in any shape for anything beyond, say, well 5 minutes so I turned back and sat on the beach, watched a beautiful sunrise, then caught 2 more hours of sleep. Looking back, I was thankful that I went to bed at midnight as my roommate did otherwise I would have been in really rough shape. I only followed him because I had left my key in the room and didn't want any trouble getting in if I had stayed up any later.

So Sunday was rough for a while but I recovered soon after breakfast and actually had a really good day. We spent the better part of the day on Sandals' private island across from their resort,  doing team building drills on the beach. A pretty good excuse for working if you ask me! Although most people were already back at it, I passed on the beers that were being brought out and drank nothing but water and 1 diet coke all day. I attempted the run again as we had a couple of hours to kill but cut it short to a easy 4k run. After dinner and some presentations/speeches, it was a little after 10:00and before I got sidetracked, I beelined it to the room and was asleep by 10:30.

I had behaved well enough Sunday and having gone to bed early enough, that Monday morning I was able to get up at 5:30 for a long run and it went quite well. I did feel the fatigue left over from 2 night's previous (you may have heard that the sleep 2 nights before a run is more important than the night before, well now I really believe that!)

I ran from our resort, to Paradise Island in Nassau which takes you over a huge bridge around the halfway point. This was tough. Actually, the whole run was tough especially since I was trying to run it at race pace but fell short on that for most of it. Overall, not too bad of a run all things considered and avweraged a 5:09/km pace.

Here is a map of the run. It shows the 2ND half of the route so it was essentially an out and back route from the left to the right and back. Strangely enough, on the way back, I was feeling spent and thought I had at least 4-5km left and then suddenly came upon the driveway to the resort which was the most welcoming end to any run in a long time.


So, the rest of Monday was spent indoors 'working' which wasn't too bad. After we were done, we had free time for the last night and other than a beer and a few glasses of wine, it was a good night. and i called it quits at midnight before I got caught up in the continued excitement that apparently lasted until dawn. I got up early and went for another, short, run and a swim and after feeling like I may have been missing out on the fun the previous night, was grateful for feeling good. Upon seeing the weary red eyes at breakfast, i definitely was glad I kept the debauchery to a minimum this weekend.

Will this weekend deter my chances of running a 15 minute PR and qualifying for Boston in  less than 2 weeks? Maybe, but if so, I am prepared to keep at it and try again in the fall. I do have 2 more marathons scheduled this spring but Niagara in June is not certified and for Ottawa I have already committed to the 3:50 Pace Bunny slot. The summer marathons are to hot for me to run fast so it will look like Fall as a next attempt. Wait, why am I being negative? I am still feeling good enough to do this. It's now time to rest and eat and sleep well for the next 10 days and then get out there and feel the pain!
Like This Post?Like This
 COMMENT 
 Posted by Dave on: Wednesday April 29 11:00:38 AM

Comments:

comment bubble Jerry A
 
Found this post on flight centre blog. So, dude, did you qualify for Boston or what?
Like This Post?Like This

Posted on: Thursday May 14 11:15 AM
comment bubble Navin
 
Hi Dave,
I'm planning on moving to the Bahamas and just read ur post since i too am into running.
Wanted to know on how safe are the roads early in the mornings in the bahamas for a good long run (typically 15-20kms). Do you see many runners? Do many locals / expats living there on business (like me) run out there? I've heard of high crime rates in the bahamas. Please advice since running is something i don't wanna give away.
Thanks,
Navin
Like This Post?Like This

Posted on: Sunday June 14 04:45 AM
www link icon  comment bubble Dave
 
I ran on 2 separate occasions, one 10k run and one 23K which covered the main road from our resort to Paradise Island. See the map in my post to get a better idea. I found it to be safe. There were many workers out and about, on their way to their hotel jobs, like custodians, clerks, room service specialists etc. There were several other runners out by the time I headed back. Daylight savings time when it is dark in the mornings may pose a safety issue though.

To answer the Boston Qualifying question above, yes I did. There is a post here about that too :)

~D
Like This Post?Like This

Posted on: Sunday June 14 09:56 PM