A little getaway and some running

For Father's Day, my parents gave me a certificate to spend a weekend in a hotel in the town of Aguadilla. While I truly appreciated the gesture, the reality is that this gift was a bit more for my daughters than it was for me. See, last year my parents took them to this hotel and they found this on the hotel pool:

My girls went absolutely nuts over this thing and we proceeded to enjoy this little water feature for the next three days and I got the sunburns to prove it. They simply did not want to leave.

I knew they were trying to get rid of me! Incredibly enough, those are not all the women in my life. There is a little 2 y/o and a lady dog as well. If they could, they would also be trying to drown me.

All kidding aside, we had a great time the whole weekend and thankfully the weather cleared up long enough for us to have some fun. It had truly been miserable here the last couple of days and the minute we checked out and left it started to rain again. Go figure.

I also ran.

I have been feeling terrible about missing runs lately because of the storms here and last week was no exception. I missed my run on Thursday which I really tried not to as I didn't want to have a weekend out in a "running deficit" but it was not to be. What is a runner to do?

Well, a runner makes up the run at 5 am on Friday before he leaves for his mini-vacation (4 miles) so he won't feel as guilty about eating those cookies in the hotel lobby. He then wakes up at 5 am the very next day to run 5 more miles while on his little getaway. It was a great run actually. The hotel used to be a hospital that was part of a huge Air Force base that was very active during the Cold War. It had the 4th longest runway in the World at the time ( I think it still ranks 5th or 6th today) and B-52 bombers were stationed there with the sole purpose of reaching and leveling Russia if need be. Today its a civil airport and most of the buildings are part of the University of Puerto Rico but there is still some military presence. I guess that runway is too much of a good thing to let go completely. 

Well, the Air Force's loss is a runner's gain. A runway that long means plenty of flats to run in and I certainly took advantage of them to get my 5 miles in. It was a very scenic run too, watching the old remnants of the base and see how the old buildings and homes are being used now as well as all the planes - both civil and military - along the length of the runway. Shortest 5 miles I've ever run.

It's interesting. I've logged miles some cool places. I got lost in Disney World, I ran a couple of miles around a cruise ship, ran a race in a private paradise island and now I've run in an ex-military base. In August, I'm supposed to go to Chicago for my Union's International Convention so you know I will be running there at least a couple of times. How's that for some diverse places to run.

How about you? What are some interesting places you have run?