5 Laps = 1 Mile

After lounging, boating, and sightseeing for two glorious days on the island of Bermuda, I am back on the ship, heading for home. I am also back to my marathon training. Since boarding the ship, I've employed one of my tried and true training techniques: Tell people that you are training for a marathon. They like to ask you about it.

My hubby and I had the good fortune to be assigned to a dinner table with 5 fabulous dinner companions. (For those of you who are not familiar with dinners on Royal Caribbean cruise ships - they assign you to a table with total strangers, something that I generally dread.) During one of those first dinners, we told our companions that we were training for our first marathon. AND that we planned to run on the ship. This was a very helpful move for me, as after 3 days of tropical drinks and chocolate desserts, the last thing I really wanted to do was run.

But, its a little hard to blow it off when you see your new friends on your way to the pool, way to the bar, way to the buffet (you get my drift) and they ask, "How was your run today?"

Let me get one thing straight - I cannot lie about my running. If I am supposed to run 10 miles, 9.9 doesn't cut it. I cannot say a run was good, if I didn't do it. I could not lie to my new found friends.

I had two options: 1) Tell the truth - "You know, I didn't go on a run. I've been drinking too much and I really don't want to drag myself up to the top deck and run around and around and around. I decided to take a nap instead." OR 2) Just go do it so you can honestly tell them how the run was.

I chose option 2.

I finished my 4 mile run in a little under 45 minutes. A few observations:

A Garmin GPS watch DOES NOT work on a moving cruise ship. As I started my run, my watch already reported that I had traveled .8 miles before I even logged in .01 - Silly girl, the watch was picking up the ship's speed. Talk about a PR!

There are some serious headwinds and crosswinds on the top deck of a ship on the Atlantic. At first, I viewed them as a challenge to my run - kinda like running hills. My thoughts quickly turned how long it would take for someone to notice if the winds blew me overboard. Can a girl tread water better with her Asics Gel Nimbus 11s off or on?

5 laps around the ship = 1 mile. After 20 laps, I was done. After passing the same family playing shuffle board, the same rather large gentleman sunning himself on the deck, and the same lady eating an ice cream cone (tell me, how does one person make an ice cream cone last 45 minutes? She must have been going back for seconds... thirds ... eighths ... tenths) over and over, I couldn't do it any more.

After several laps around the deck, I began to wonder where my running would take me next. I've run to a beautiful sunrise along the California Coast, among the monuments of Washington D.C., atop a cruise ship on the Atlantic Ocean. Next week, I'll be running the San Antonio half-marathon on a course that takes you past the Alamo.

There is a whole world of running opportunities out there. I can't wait to find out where they will take me next.


Have running shoes, will travel. Any suggestions?