$14 mojitos

It's been a while since my last post. Mostly laziness and travel have kept me from blogging or running.

Runs:

March 20-26

2, 3 mile runs (Friday and Sunday) on the San Juan beach on Isla Verde. Running on this sand was very difficult. The sand near our hotel was flat and packed near the waves, but as I ran east, the packed areas either became very slanted, or the sand was very loose. Thus, I had to run on the loose stuff, further away from the water, which was much harder. The temperature was 85 degrees and at least that % in humidity.

March 27-30
8 miles in 1:09 on 3/30. This was my longest midweek run. I wanted to get used to this, b/c that Pfitzinger seems to relish in making you run long during the week. One thing Old Higdon did, was make a program that conformed much nicer for working folks. Does Pfitzinger think that everyone can run 12 milers before work when we aren't running 5 minute miles?

We were in San Juan Puerto Rico for a wedding last week. We stayed for 5 1/2 days total and it was glorious. It was nice to do nothing. I sat on the beach. I drank my body weight in Mojitos. (The Ritz made teh best ones, however they were $14, ouch) I ate and lounged some more. Old San Juan is much more compelling as a tourist area, with the forts and the cobblestone streets, restaurants and nightlife. Unfortunately, we were a 20 minute cab ride from there. The running would have been much better there.

The first 4 nights we stayed at the Ritz-Carlton.
My wife works for Marriott, who owns the Ritz. Thus, we got a rally sweet $89 rate. The going rate was over $500/night. Unfortunately, the rate wasn't available the final 2 days, so we moved to a Courtyard. Nice by most standards, but not the Ritz. The real kicker was the Marriott rate at the Courtyard was $159/night!

I ended up paying bellman $15 to bring 3 bags to my room. The day we got there, there was a room screw up. I gave the bellman $5 as we got out of the cab, assuming that he was bringing up the bags. However, due to the screw up in the rooms, A different guy brought it up 30 minutes later. I tipped that guy $5. Then while we were at the Wedding rehearsal (my son was the ring bearer), there were supposed to move the bags to our new room. They didn't. So when we got back from the rehearsal, I had to tip another guy $5 to move the bags from our smoking room to the nonsmoking room we requested. I will say that they were all VERY nice to us. Actually, they were really nice to my wife. Hmm. I wonder why? "Ms. A, nice to see you today" "Ms A, how was your dinner" Not unlike the SNL skit where the Italian waiters fawn over the female diner, in front of her husband.

Ritz: Perfect hotel. Lots to do without leaving. Sports, food, drinks, pool. But at a price.
Courtyard: Adequate. Nothing fancy, but a good value. It shares the same beach as the Ritz. (Within 5 minutes of arriving at the Courtyard, there was a fight in the lobby. 3 ten year olds were punching each other. I was thinking, I ain't at the Ritz anymore!