Jamaica is a fantastic vacation destination.  Every December in Negril for Reggae Marathon is testament to that.  But every once in a while it’s nice to change it up.  That’s what I did last week.  Got off the Grid, shut my cell phone off, didn’t check email and stayed away from Facebook….well, mostly.  Other than the reality of having a ton of personal and work-related email to catch up on Monday morning, it was a fantastic break!

Athough it was a vacation I brought along my running gear.  Running isn’t work for me so taking a break is un-natural.  Plus I love to explore new places and what better way to do that than to go for a run.  Because I really was on vacation I got up a little later than normal and ran much later in the morning than I usually do. That was nice.  I ran along some heavily treed hard-packed gravel roads through country forests. Lots of undulations and turns allowing glimpses of the nearby water through the trees.  Since I like running solo, not meeting anyone meant I had the roads and trails all to myself.

I’m back now and totally recharged!  Plus I realized this morning that we are now just under 75 days to Reggae Marathon December 6.  I’ve got the 10K Race in my sights again this year and am training hard aiming for a PR.  And after the relative disappointments of the last two years, as long as I stay healthy I’ll have a good shot.  I’m not thinking about a podium finish but you never know…

I hope you managed to get some vacation time with family and friends this past summer.  It was a great break for me!

Until next time…

Reggae Marathon RunninGuy (aka Sugar ‘Tuff Gong’ Bong)