I'm Sailing Awayyyyy

I'm back on dry land after what can probably be described as the most unlikely business trip location I've ever had. I spent 3 nights on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship, helping with the implementation of a pretty cool use of the technology that I've made my living with for the past 8 years. I can't say that it was a lot of fun, because we worked long hours, but it certainly was interesting. Back in my younger days I tended bar, so working in a place where other people are having a good time isn't new to me. But then I was at least working with the people having a good time, here I was just working where they were having fun. The ship was beautiful though and I did get a chance to run a couple of times in the mornings.

The ship has a track on the top deck that measures just under 1/4 mile. The sign said 4.5 laps per mile. So Monday morning I got up early and hit the deck at about 7am and immediately headed off into a 35 mph wind. Whoa, talk about slow going. Between the wind and the fairly pronounced movement of the ship, i was all over the place.  It was pretty cool when I turned the loop and had the wind at my back though! I kind of lost track of how many laps I did, but I ran for just over 20 minutes before I got really sick of battling the wind and called it quits. I'd guess I did just under 2 miles. I tried to run out there again Wednesday morning but it was rather rainy, so I went into the fitness center and used the treadmill instead.  I'm not a very good treadmill runner as it is, but throw in the rocking of the ship and I almost ran off the side a couple of times. I finished my run with some time on the weight machines and felt pretty good about my trip.

As for food, well that was a struggle but I did pretty well. We ate almost every meal at the buffet and while I didn't always make the best decisions, I did well with my portion sizes and stuck to the sugar free desserts. I weighed in at 268 before I left sunday morning and today I was 266, so I call that a success. 

Overall it was a cool experience. I got a little taste of what cruising can be like and its really got me excited for our trip in a couple of weeks. Now I know that we're going to have a great time. When I debarked yesterday in St. Thomas, the Disney Magic was also docked there and it was a thrill to see her. Can't wait to get on board.

I bought a runners world magazine in the airport for the ride home and it started a couple of really nice conversations with strangers. One of the flight attendants started telling me about his running. He once ran a half-marathon in Amsterdam on a layover. Then the lady sitting next to me told me that her husband ran the Marine Corps Marathon last week. We talked about running and how he trains for his runs. He's missed qualifying for Boston twice now by seconds.  Well, actually this year he qualified by 12 seconds, but the race filled up and he wasn't able to register. Heart breaking. I'm feeling good about my current running even though I haven't been increasing the mileage as quickly as I planned. With the vacation coming up in 2 weeks, I'm going to maintain where I'm at for now, run the 5K on the cruise, then I'll start to ramp up over the winter to get ready for a great spring.