35th Annual Cross Island Relay

This morning I participated in the 35th annual Cross Island Relay.

The relay is the longest continually held running race in Cayman. It began its life as the "High School Cross Island Relay", conceived by PE teacher Winston Skinner, as an inter-house competition in 1975 (a similar race was run in his native Barbados). From the beginning other teams were welcome to participate. When the High School decided not to continue with the race the Hash House Harriers took over the tradition of organising the event.

The course runs from East to West. Starting in East End and finishing not far from George Town in the West. More specifically the 6 four mile legs are:

• 1-Gun Bay -> Blow Holes
• 2-Blow Holes -> Frank Sound Junction
• 3-Frank Sound -> Junction Old Drive-In by Everglow
• 4-Old Drive-In by Everglow ->Savannah Meadows
• 5-Savannah Meadows -> Sunrise Apartments South Sound
• 6-Sunrise Apartments South Sound -> Smith Cove

The Hash House Harriers have the course record of 2:14:04. The fastest female leg is held by Herfa Ebanks in a time of 24:12 set in 1984 (barefoot apparently!). That year Tim Byrne also set the record of the fastest individual leg in a time of 20:12.

I ran with the team "Beauty and the Beasts". They came second last year to UBS1 so were keen on revenge. The line-up for our 6 legs were as follows:

• 1 -Jasper
• 2 -Beth
• 3 -Marius
• 4 -Hayden
• 5 -JP
• 6 -Russ

Start was 6 am in East End which meant an early 4:45 am wake-up to get there on time. Once at the start-line it became clear I would be "battling" Sammy from UBS. He has a reputation as a fast starter and sure enough the first km was run in 3:34. Next km was also a fast 3:39, but I was gradually able to pull away. I kept a good pace for the third km, but started to feel the quick start about half way and at times I dropped the pace to a more human 4 min/km. However, I managed a decent sprint finish. My average pace for the whole run was 3:45 min/km (6:02 min/mile) which translates to a finish time of 24:09. However, my official time for the race was 24:45. My Garmin is usually not that far off, so I guess the leg is long, maybe not the full 160m according to the Garmin, but at least 100m. I will check it on the bike one of these days for good measure. Regardless, I am happy with the outcome and think I am making good progress in my running at this stage.

While the outcome of the relay last year was determined on the last leg there was not much excitement this year with us leading from start to finish. All team members ran some great times. Our final time was 2:24:50, which translates to a 24:08 average per leg.

Picture of the winning team below (from left to right; Jasper, Marius, JP, Russel, Beth, Hayden).

UPDATE: Measured the leg on the bike this weekend, was approx. 145m too long.