Training for a 60 mile walk on a 22 mile long island (the math does not add up!)

Being that the 3 Day Walk is next week I thought it might be fun to share what a typical training walk looks like here in BDA.  (Also, I am catching a lot of flack from a certain someone at work who has nothing better to than to to look at my blog updates ;) !!!!)

I have been trying to be good about doing as many walks as I can to get ready for the big 60 miles that awaits Kelly and I next week, but I am not going to lie....I have not done a very good job.  There are a number of reasons why (some are pictured below).  If you have not been to the island then you do not know that it is made up of a lot of very narrow winding roads, most of which do not have sidewalks, but are instead all sand.  With the amount of miles I have walked in sand I should have the most amazing calves by now!  Sadly this is not the case and I am blaming that on the ice cream truck parked outside my bedroom window (see previous blog post!)

So lets get walking!  These two pics below are my street, as you can see very narrow with big ol' rocks on either side of me. 

From there we take a left onto....

feel free to look at the map I have posted in the previous blog to follow along if you like!

As you can see below, last Sunday was not a very nice day.  I only got 5 miles in before it started to rain.  You can see the clouds there in the background.  See the big white thing that looks like a ski slope...that is where we get all of our water from.  In Bermuda the rain water is what we use to bathe, drink, cook, wash, etc....  That white thing is a big, bumpy hill where the water slides down and goes into a storage container.  This year we have been experiencing a draught and the water tanks are very low.  It is amazing to think an island completely surrounded by water and we are almost all out of drinking water!

The lighthouse there is Gibb's Lighthouse.  There is a really cool effect that it creates at night where it looks like the light is reflecting off the ocean.  Its hard to explain, but the first time I saw it I asked Philip what it was and he told me it was a UFO.  I should have known then what I was getting myself into.

As we continue down the road we pass my first real challenge in the walk...not stopping at Henry's for a Dark n Stormy!

Right across the street from Henrys is a very sad piece of property.  Its where the hotel that Philip and I first met used to stand, now it is just an empty lot :(  The good news is that its for sale.  anyone wanna by a 33 acre piece of land? Its oceanfront!

When I am on my way home, I have what I like to think of as the Holy Trinity because they are very close together and it means I am almost home.  Herny's is the middle of the Trinity.  The 3rd part of it is the Fairmont Hotel which is huge and makes me happy to see because I know I have entered the homestretch. 

The next challenge is when I pass Horseshoe Beach and can see all of the tourist down there on the beach and in the water, who wants to be walking when you can be beaching ????

Even when it is about to rain, the beach packed!  They all look like little ants running around.  But lets keep walking....

This is the Southampton Rangers Sports Club.  They play cricket and football (aka soccer) there.  The questions I keep asking and have yet to get an answer to is why is there an American Flag when neither of those sports are played in America????

As mentioned earlier, it is a lot tougher training here than it was in Boston.  One of the reasons is this.....

they are big, they come out of nowhere and they do not like to share the road!  Basically they scare the shit out of me! Here you can see the kind of surface I have been walking on....

not exactly solid or stable!

But not all of the training is bad.....the scenery can not be beat!  Between the views of the ocean and beaches, the colors and smells of the flowers and the cool trees like below, it keeps me going.

I am not sure what type of trees they are, but they blow my mind everyday when I see them. 

 Some of you will recognize where I am walking to.  The funny thing is, when I walked in Boston I knew I was close when I could see the Pru, here I know I am just about half way when I see....

Not sure what that big yellow building on the hill is???? 

There it is!  Thankfully they let me use them for a potty breaks and water refills.  Its way better then the port-o-pottys on the walk, that for sure.  Its also always nice to see a familiar face as many of the people I used to work with are still there.  So usually I take about 10 mins to cool down and stretch before I turn around and head back to the Holy Trinity!