STRESSING IN ANTIGUA?   Impossible to have those two words in the same sentence. My wife noticed that by the fourth day of our running cruise,  almost every time a fellow cruiser was having a photo taken of themselves, they would tell the photographer the caption for the photo they were about to snap. I didn’t know I did this until our own running paparazzi  were taking photos of me out in the middle of the ocean -

me wearing Laura’s bucket hat and with two beers (Pitons) in my hands trying, unconvincing, to convince the photogs: “I’m stressing! I’m stressing! Really. I am.”  

DRINKING CLUB WITH A RUNNING PROBLEM   Ffryes Beach was the staging area for our third annual trail hash with the local chapter of the Hash House Harriers. For the uninitiated; HHH are internationally known as a “Drinking Club with a Running Problem” and in Antigua the drink of choice is rum! Antigua, pronounced “an-tee-guh”, is known for its beautiful white sand beaches and it’s said there are 365 of them so you can go to a new one every day but we’d be content to hang at Ffryes every time we visit. Antigua is our double workout day – a long morning run to and from Fort Barrington and an afternoon trail hash option where many opted to just frolic in the water instead.

BOOKS FOR ANTIGUA   Our morning run is mostly on country roads but starts in town and this year it went by a grade school just before classes started; it was a mutual lovefest between our 300+ runners and the 300+ students in their crisp plaid uniforms. Before we headed out on the morning run, we presented the local library staff with 240 new books – 145 of which were children’s books –  to stock their not quite done new library. (And yes, “My Life on the Run” was one of those books.) How cool it would have been to present the school kids with those books. Maybe next year?