Same Time, Same Channel

Red-eye flight. No running.

We left for the Denver airport at about 9:30 pm on Sunday. Our flight left Denver at about 12:30 am on Monday morning. I tried and tried to sleep on the plane, but felt like I didn't sleep at all. Maybe I dozed off a little bit. We arrived in Philadelphia at about 6:00 am Eastern Time and had breakfast at Chick-Fil-A in the airport. We left Philadelphia at 7:45 and arrived in Fort Lauderdale at about 10:30. We collected our luggage and then didn't have to wait too long for a bus to the cruise ship.

Once we got on the ship, we ate lunch, then my husband and sons all napped while I unpacked and took Annie to the swimming pool. I managed to get about a 15 minute nap before we had to do our muster drill. That's where you put on a life jacket and go line up in a designated area where you supposed to go if there's an emergency. After that, it was pretty much time to get ready for dinner. I honestly can't remember what we did after dinner. I think I was in a fog by then.

 I didn't manage any running that day.

AM: The ship was docked at Key West, so my Garmin was somewhat accurate as I ran on the deck of the ship. Still, it was very windy and humid and running on the deck of the ship was difficult. I was wearing a cap and had to really struggle to keep it on when I was going into the wind. I had over slept a bit and didn't have a lot of time, but I managed to get in 3.22 miles. This mileage measure is according to my Garmin. Average pace, according to Garmin, was 9:37.

I guess the ship was drifting a little, so maybe my Garmin figures aren't so accurate. Here's a picture of my running route:

I'm really bad about taking pictures and so I don't really have any. My oldest son took a lot of pictures. I'll try to get some from him and post them later.

I had to get to breakfast on time because after breakfast we were going parasailing. I went up with my 14-year-old and then he got to go again because we had an odd number of people and my 16-year-old needed a partner. Then my husband went up with my 12-year-old. The 6-year-old stayed behind with grandma and grandpa. It was fun and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. But the boat ride was a little nauseating.

One of the tour operators took a bunch of pictures of us parasailing and sold us a CD with the pictures. So here's a picture of my son and I just before as we were getting ready to go up into the air:

Here's a picture of us up in the air:

We had some free time in the afternoon, so I managed a run on the treadmill. I did 1 mile at 10:00 pace, then 1 mile at 9:31 pace, then 2 miles at 8:57 pace. Even though it is climate controlled inside the ship, I got incredibly sweaty running on the treadmill. I don't know why I sweat so much. Other people didn't seem to be as sweaty. I had to wipe down the whole machine when I was done. Fortunately one of my nephews showed up in the fitness center during my run and I got him to hand me a towel. I had neglected to grab one before I started running.

After that run I had to hurry and get dressed because it was formal night and we were having family pictures taken before dinner.

This was my one and only run on the moving ship. And it was actually my last run of the cruise. I guess I got lazy after this day.

My Garmin was useless while the ship was moving. I wore it so that I could use it to count laps, but that's about all it was good for. The wind was fierce. One direction I was going straight into the wind, the other direction it was at my back, but was blowing my hair out of my pony tail and into my face. I had put on sunscreen, but I was sweating like crazy and the sunscreen and sweat were running into my eyes. At one point, I stopped and went in to get a towel to wipe my eyes.

Just for kicks, here are the map and the pace chart for this run. The map really shows what the ship did, not what I did. The pace chart is kind of funny because it shows where I'm going with the ship and where I'm going against the direction of the ship. I was going into the wind when I was going with the ship and had the wind behind me when going against the ship, but the direction of the ship had a bigger effect on my pace from the view point of the Garmin, than the wind did. Though my true pace was more effected by the wind.

That low point after the 6th peak is where I went inside to get a towel.

We spent this day on the beach in Cozumel, Mexico. It was a lot of fun. It was a very nice beach and they had all paddle boats and canoes you could take out on the water. They had a water trampoline, which we didn't try because it was too crowded. But they also had this think called an ice berg, which was big white inflated thing with handles on one side. It was anchored a ways from shore.You could climb up it and then slide down the other side. My boys had a good time with that, but I didn't try it.

They had a little swimming pool with fresh water and my daughter spent most of her time there.

The kids really enjoyed this excursion. They had never been to a beach before. But despite my best efforts at putting suncreen on everyone, we all got a little sunburned.

We were in Belize this day and went on a really long excursion that started early in the morning and so I didn't have time for running.

You can't bring a ship up next to the shore in Belize, I think because of the Great Barrier Reef that is there, so the ship anchored quite a ways from shore and we had to take smaller boats, called tenders, in to the shore. Then we rode on a not very well air-conditioned bus nearly all the way across Belize to within about a 1/2 mile of the Guatemalan border to some Mayan ruins called Xunantunich. We had to walk up a big hill to get to the ruins and I had to carry my 6-year-old daughter on my sun-burned shoulder. Then we climbed the biggest ruin and that was quite challenging. From the top we could see for miles. It was pretty cool. Getting down off the ruin was physically easier, but scarier, than climbing up had been. Then they took us to a restaurant where we had a traditional Belizian lunch of chicken, and rice and beans. Then it was the 2 hour bus ride back to the coast. We saw a lot of Belize on that bus ride and I have to say that on the whole it was in a considerable state of disrepair.

I forgot to take my camera on this excursion (what an idiot I am), but my son had his. I'll try to get pictures from him later.

When we finally got back to the ship, we got showed and had dinner and then I went to bed early. I was exhausted.

At sea all day, but somehow there was no time for running.

I intended to run this day and I could have if I had really tried, but neither the ship's deck nor the treadmill were very inviting.

I must have been really tried, because even with going to bed early the night before I slept in. It was my daughter's birthday, and so we went to breakfast with her and then took her to the kids' place to get ready to be in a talent show. She wanted to do a little dance in the talent show. Then we had a little free time, but not enough for me to get a run before going to her talent show. We had a little time after lunch, but again, not enough time for a run, because we had a little birthday party for my daughter at 2:00. I possibly could have run after that, but we were in the middle of a big rain storm, and so the track was out of the question. We spent the afternoon participating in various trivia contests they were having on the ship and playing cards with Thom's brother and his wife.

After dinner we went to the show, which featured a magician. He was very good. And then we had to pack because we had to have our bags packed and out in the hall by midnight.

Travel day. No running.

We got off the ship about 9:00 am, and then took a bus to the Fort Lauderdale airport. We hung around there for a few hours and then took a 2:00 flight to Philadelphia. We had a relatively short layover in Philadelphia and then flew back to Denver. Then we had to trudge our tired selves out to long-term parking, and drive home. We got home just before 10:00 pm Denver time. And then of course I had to go buy milk and few other things.

The cruise was lots of fun. I ate way too much and didn't run nearly enough. But it's nice to be home and now I can get back to normal.