Ofrivilliga uppförsbackar och Hawaiiregn
Marathonträningen har börjat, sakta men säkert...
Andy och jag har varit riktigt duktiga och varit ute på flera joggingrundor här i St. Lucia! Marathon känns för tillfället väldigt långt borta, men man ska väl börja någonstans..? Vi har hittat en runda här med inte alltför branta backar och enda tiden att kunna ge sig ut är mellan kl. 06-07 på morgonen, sedan är det alldelles för varmt!
I måndags ville Andy visa mig en ny runda som han hittade tidigare under veckan. Sammanfattnisgsvis kan man säga att det var "upp, ner, upp, ner och så kom man fram till stranden, vände runt, upp, ner, upp, ner och hem" (totalt 45 minuter). Alldeles för branta och långa backar för min smak, men mycket trevligt att komma fram till en strand.
I onsdags duggregnade det när vi gav oss ut, och lagom efter att Andy hade sagt "detta regn är ju ganska så skönt att springa i" började det vräka ner, Hawaii-style! Inom ett par sekunder var skorna tunga och kläderna genomblöta, och inte så långt efter det började det forsa på gatorna och vi sprang i decimeterhögt vatten. I vanliga fall tycker jag inte om att springa i regn men denna gång var det faktiskt en ganska så unik upplevelse.
Marathonuppladdningen fortsätter och det blir nog en ny runda imorn! Ser verkligen fram emot att komma hem och ge mig ut på en runda i kylan, tro det eller ej!
Kram på er alla!
ARC Village & the St. Lucia Hinterland
From a feature I wrote for the ARC website this afternoon:
The coconut vendors, of which there are plenty, admit that the tourists do not quite understand the attraction. “We sell most of the drinking coconuts to the locals,” said one particularly friendly vendor in Castries. “The tourists don’t even know what they’re missing.”
Check it out here.
The coconut vendors, of which there are plenty, admit that the tourists do not quite understand the attraction. “We sell most of the drinking coconuts to the locals,” said one particularly friendly vendor in Castries. “The tourists don’t even know what they’re missing.”
Check it out here.
Sub-three-hour marathon (...or trying to get on the Grinder Board). Day 4.
The best run so far. Legs were springy, it was early enough that the sun was not out yet and I had about ten hours of sleep and no booze the night before. We had posted a noticeboard in the ARC office for anyone to join us. No one did. We had fun.
Stats: 4.6 miles / 42:00 / 9:08 m.p.mile / 2:16 off the pace.
The Friday Column: 'Coconut Vending Area'
St.
Lucia is getting more and more familiar. This is the third year Mia and I have
worked here for ARC, and the fourth time we’ve visited including Broadreach (5th
if you count the time we anchored off the Pitons on the way back from Trinidad,
but that was only for a few hours…we did buy fruit from a local boat though).
Monday
we had the day off (days off always follow the 0200-0800 night shift – which we
are on right this moment – and are followed the next day by a 0800-2000
double-shift. But that 24 hours without any responsibilities is wonderful). The
yellow-shirt team has a rental car we can use, mainly to get back and forth
from the marina and the hotel in the middle of the night, but also for use on
days off.
We
took the car south to the market in Castries, which we first discovered on that
Broadreach trip. The traffic on the island is bad, especially in the first
half-mile between Rodney Bay Marina and the new Bayview Mall (or whatever it is
called). The intersection there is not well designed. There are loads of cars
on this island. There are loads of cars on most of the islands here, and it
usually makes for sour driving experiences. St. Martin around Christmas time
was the absolute worst. We gave up trying to go for dinner that one night,
barely making it a mile from the Pad. Instead, we went to the grocery store and
bought beer and cheese.
| One of the coconut men. |
This
day in St. Lucia was not bad though. After driving around town a bit, which was
busy (there were two cruise ships in port), we eventually found the parking
garage and happily paid the two EC dollars it cost to park securely (as opposed
to the 25 we paid last year when we got a parking ticket).
Castries
is a Caribbean city. A very nice harbor is situated to the east. At it’s
terminus, a single cruising sailboat was anchored a couple hundred feet from
the shoreline, on which the main road runs. The cruise ship terminal is what
you would expect from a cruise ship terminal. It’s too-clean and filled with
stores selling watches and jewelry. Across the road, the market comes in two
sections – one for the locals (apparently) and one for the cruise ship tourists
(obviously). The latter is lined with stalls under a wooden fixed roof, selling
things you would expect to find in a market next to a cruise ship terminal.
Crappy t-shirts that say ‘We be Jammin’! St. Lucia’ and photo albums made from
palm fronds that you can buy in every single Caribbean city. This market is
under the wooden roof so as to be in the shade.
| Beer on the dock in Gros Islet. |
The
locals market is on the opposite side, further from the waterfront. Most of
those vendors have tables set up beneath umbrellas. Some of them are in
permanent huts, and colorful (like the one Mia’s bread lady operates). Along
the streets surrounding the market space are several small pubs and food
establishments, though most have only a few stools, if they have any place at
all to sit down.
The
locals market is where Mia and I go to buy food, where we have gone to buy food
since our first year down here. Then, we found a guy, Brock-Up, who sells meat
from a grill along the street at a place called Brock-Up’s. He is set up on the
corner, and just this year got a nice new awning, ostensibly sponsored by Carib
beer, because the awning says ‘Carib Beer’ in bright blue and yellow. He has a
small hut inside which a woman cooks the side dishes, and he runs a big grill
outside, this year comfortably in the shade. He sells chicken wings and pork
cutlets. He remembered us last year – I took him some plantains from another
vendor, and he grilled them for me. Plantains on the grill. He remembered us
again this year, and questioned why I did not bring any plantains.
The
bread lady was closed on Monday, so Mia was out of luck.
We
drank two coconuts before buying meat from Brock-Up (and his special ‘banana
salad’ side dish, which was an interesting mash-up of salt fish, boiled green bananas
and mixed veg). Then we drank two more coconuts after, spreading the love
between the various pick-up trucks. A nice guy wearing a Philly Flyers shirt (I
do not think he knew where Philly is) sold us our last one, and I told him we’d
return later for more. He told us the tourists do not really know about coconuts, so it is mostly locals who buy them, which is strange, because back home they sell coconut water in cardboard drink boxes in the grocery store. I have had about twenty coconuts since we arrived.
Today
we have another day off. We will visit the market again.
Magnus Olsson sails on Triumph in ARC 2011
| Christof Petter on Vaquita |
| Martin Maier on Vaquita |
In the meantime, check out the feature I wrote on the ARC website about those guys and others.
Sub-three-hour marathon (...or trying to get on the grinder board). Day 2.
| Rodney Bay to the beach...again |
Erell, the French girl from Phaedo, was supposed to come with us, but she slept in. We were up at 5:45...Nick heard us walk past his door at 5:57 and thought he was late for something. When he realized we were out for a run, he thought to himself that we were idiots.
This one was better and worse than the first one. Better in that I ran some hill repeats, but worse in that the overall pace was slower. I don't have numbers for this one, not that it matters.
Sub-three-hour marathon (...or trying to get on the grinder board). Day 1.
Day One: 5 December 2011
| Rodney Bay to the Beach. St. Lucia. |
It was not pretty, but likely effective. I ran at 2:30pm, in the heat of the day, but I had to. Mia and I have a meeting with Magnus Olsson, the Swedish ex-Volvo Ocean Race skipper of Ericsson 3 this afternoon. We were off all day, so I have to make the best of the time. I know when we get over to the marina I will not force myself to run later (which is the sensible option, given the temperature), so I got it over with now.
We worked until 8:00am this morning (from 2:00am), slept for a few hours in the hotel room and took off in the rental car to Castries. I am going to write about the 'Coconut Vending Area' for my first Friday column this week, so look for that. We met the meat guy at Brock Up's and had cutlets with banana salad. More on that later.
I ran in my Five Fingers, turning right out of the Palm Haven and heading northeast, towards the Atlantic side and the beach. Google maps shows roads in that direction, but they are really 'roads.' After a half-mile or so, the pavement disintegrated and became a deeply rutted dirt track with shanty homes and stray dogs on either side, and the oddly placed upscale B&B lingering further off the path behind the palm fronds. The topographical map does not quite show it so dramatically, but the path was two distinct mountain climbs and descents, one after the other and more or less in a straight line. At the top of the first there is a horse farm, and I passed three white riders and a local guide, who gingerly led their steeds down the path. Mostly it was firm, with the odd muddy spot. Running downhill at speed on a dirt trail is immensely enjoyable. It requires unexpected concentration, focus on each footfall, and the time disappears. My steps are shorter and more deliberate. One the way back, my rhythm was in-sync with the beat to a Moby song, which I turned up very loudly.
On the other side of the second big hill is the Atlantic Ocean.
Once I got back to the main road that the hotel is on, I searched for 'Summertime Clothes' by Animal Collective and sprinted around the block with the sound turned up as loud as it would go.
Distance Covered: 4.26 miles
Time: ~40 minutes
Pace: 9:22 / mile
Pace Needed for Sub-3: 6:52 / mile
Discrepancy: 2:30 / mile
Long way to go.
'Kinship' Across the Atlantic
| Saga 43 Sailplan |
It is official. Thanks to the nice email I received from Tim Szabo the other day, Mia and I will be heading across the Atlantic again next spring. This time onboard Kinship, a Saga 43, and via the southern North Atlantic route through Bermuda and the Azores. We will actually be participating in the ARC Europe rally, getting a chance to sail in an event I worked on last year. The event finishes in Lagos, Portugal, a part of the world neither Mia nor myself has ever been, which is rather exciting (we have also never visited the Azores - part of the reason we went north on our boat last year was the inkling that we would likely get the chance to see the other route professionally someday; we never thought it would be this quickly though. Thanks Tim!). Though we have great fun working on-event for stuff like this (and plan to continue to do so), the ultimate goal has always been to keep sailing, so when the opportunity came up it was an easy decision.
Mia and I met Tim and Teresa in Tortola during the finish of the Caribbean 1500, which they had participated in to bring the boat south from the Chesapeake. Tim asked us to come by the boat to talk about sailing her to Europe. I do not have much experience with a Saga, but I was impressed when he showed us the boat, and I am more impressed after just reading a few things about it on the builder's website. The 43 is in my opinion, by far the nicest-looking boat that Saga makes. I look forward to sailing it.
Bob Perry designed the boat, taking cues from modern shorthanded ocean-racers like those in what used to be the BOC. The design brief was essentially opposite of what you find in typical production boats, emphasizing sailing ability and seakeeping qualities over interior volume. It is a narrow boat and long on the waterline. Read about the Saga 43 here.
| ARC Europe Route |
The ARC in particular gets some high profile sailors and boats. I am working on a story for the website right now about just that - I had a conversation yesterday with the crew of Vaquita, an Akalaria 40, which includes Andreas Hanakamp, the ex-Volvo Ocean Race skipper of Team Russia. His Segelwelt company manages various sailing projects around the world, and his enthusiasm for the sport is infectious. Magnus Olsson, the skipper of Ericsson 3 in the last Volvo is crewing aboard the Swedish yacht Triumph, a Baltic 64 that arrived yesterday. Mia and I have a 'date' with him tomorrow afternoon on our day off to discuss my story.
Phaedo, the Gunboat 66 cat that was third across the line in ARC this year, won line honors in this past summer's Trans-Atlantic race from Newport to the UK, beating out the Maltese Falcon at the finish. Andreas Hanakamp told me that several ex-Volvo sailors were aboard Med Spirit, the maxi that took line honors in ARC this year (and then promptly departed for Martinique). So despite my reservations about events like this - I still would not do one on my own boat, the reason we went north on Arcturus last summer - I now understand the attraction, and am delighted to be able to participate on other people's boats.
Hanakamp incorporates good-for-the-world initiatives into his programs as well. Last year Vaquita was named We Sail for the Whale - both years, they promoted the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, to raise awareness. Check out the ARC 'Features' page tomorrow for more details.
Hanakamp said it best yesterday - "it's all about expectations," he told me. "I love working with people, managing their goals (whether it's the Volvo or something like ARC), and achieving success." His passion for the sport is infectious, and it is easy to see why he would enjoy the ARC as much as the Volvo. He told Mia later, when she went out on Vaquita to watch Scarlet Oyster finish, that "people love sailing with 'legends'."
Anyway, to my 'enlightened' self, these rallies are similar to a marathon or triathlon. You can run 26.2 miles by yourself, but a lot of the time it is more fun surrounded by thousands of other people who share a similar passion. That, above anything else, is why these events are so popular - and why, with the right attitude, they can be fun.
