Sunday, December 21, 2008

Kauai running

I have been looking forward all year to visiting Kauai, "The Garden Isle". I love Maui (I've been there 5 times in the past 6 years) but decided to visit Kauai. There are 18 of us staying in a large (it's big!) villa right on the ocean on the West shore (check out Villa I on http://alohakauaivillas.com).

We landed pretty late on Friday (Dec 19) and were tired by the time we slept around midnight. My PST biological clock woke me up at 5:30 a.m. and pretty soon all of us were eating  hearty breakfast while sitting on the lanai.

The day was spent lazing. It was 3:30 p.m. when 5 of us headed off in the direction of the Pacific Missile facility. The others turned back 1.5 miles into the run while I decided to go up Kokee road (this road leads to Waimea Canyon and beyond to Kokee). What a beautiful run it turned out to be! The road gradually started climbing and I was soon negotiating a steady 4-5% grade. 

Birds chirping of to my left accompanied by the sound of water rushing down the hill in the form of a stream. Water headed back to the ocean to evaporate and begin its run down the stream again days from now!

No mile posts went by to inform me about my progress. After having run up the road for about 33 minutes, I decided I would turn back as soon as the first car passed me. I had to run another 3 minutes to start to point my shoes down the hill.

The run down finally showed by how steep the run up was. I felt good going up and even better coming down the long way to the left turn back to the villas.

I'm excited about tackling that climb again this week. I will carry water and something to eat that day.

It's 6:45 a.m. and I want to eat breakfast while watching the sunrise from the lanai. :)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rajeev...we love Kauai! I didn't know you'd be there; we leave for there on Tuesday.

John and I have run a few of the trails there, we recommend: the Powerline Trail, which is about 13 miles and a point to point from outside of Kapaa to Princeville area. Also, we've started from around Kokee Lodge and run some of the network of trails that start from there. The Sleeping Giant area has nice up and over trails for running. Finally, although we haven't run them, out by Polihale beach there's a lot of dirt cane roads that would make for decent running, I think.

Rajeev said...

Nicole,

Thank you for all the suggestions. I hope I can do some o the trails.

Merry Christmas to you and John.

Have a great trip.

Rajeev

Rick Gaston said...

I lived in Honolulu for 10 years and Kauai is the only other island I've visited. My stepdad and my mom were married there and we made frequent trips to the island. Sometimes we brought the bought for some water skiing in the Wailua river. I love the laid back lifestyle in Kauai and the people I've met from that island have been really great people, in Kauai and in Honolulu.

Enjoy your stay Rajeev and Happy New Year.