More Travel: Swimming My Way Through the Virgin Islands and Another Goal

Want to know a good way to annoy people and make them want to smack you in the face?  If so, I suggest you try what I’m about to do and complain about having to travel to cool places.  In fact, I may even take it one step further.  You know how 99.99% of the population puts on their resume that they enjoy travel?  I’m going contrarian on this one and making it clear on my resume that I hate traveling. 

Before I start bitching, let me assure you it’s not lost on me that getting a trip to Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Japan is pretty phenomenal both personally and professionally.  I certainly would welcome the chance for another exotic work trip anytime.  It’s also utterly ridiculous for me to even hint at complaining about the trip I just took to the Virgin Islands, where Sue and I just returned from a wedding and vacation. 

But do you think that’s going to stop me?  Of course not!  Complaining is way more fun and interesting than talking about how beautiful the water is so please allow me to mix plenty of that in over these next several paragraphs. 

Here’s how it all went down:

We arrived at STT airport on St. Thomas Thursday, March 29.  To say the taxi stand didn’t have a system would be an understatement.  It was pure chaos.  How hard would it be to have a system that involved a clearly designated leader giving directions?  I’ll even make the first suggestion for a system:  how about a line?  You know, one of those things that people stand in until it is their turn.  I’m open to other ideas but that would be my contribution to the good island people.  As it stands, I think I asked about 47 people which van to get into and got 47 different answers. 

Anyway, Sue and I survived the unnecessary confusion and made it to our hotel.  It took me about 2.4 minutes to put on my suit and goggles and start swimming back and forth in the pool.  Keep in mind, the pool was probably 12 yards long and everyone else at the hotel was just lounging around getting sun.  I think they thought I was a little intense doing laps in a pool clearly not made for laps but I didn’t care. 

Speaking of not caring, I’ve also been doing the leg machine lately at the gym where you squeeze your legs together.  You know the one…it’s the machine that no male has ever used in the history of gyms.  It's funny, whenever I get on everyone looks at me like I just walked into the women's locker room.

Let me assure you that you have to be pretty comfortable with your manliness to get on that machine.  I’m trying to change the conversation between meatheads in America from “home much do you bench?” to “how much can you do on the leg squeezing machine?”  Clearly, I’ve lost it and am way beyond caring what others think about me.

As for the wedding, it was the next day (a Friday wedding for the record…but hey, I’m not one to complain) at a very nice yacht club on the beach.  It was supposed to start at 4pm but it didn’t actually get going until 6pm.  I thought this was another example of “island time” but it turns out that one of the bridesmaids somehow forgot her dress on the other side of the island.  I have no idea how this is possible.  If that wasn’t enough, when she finally was able to get it and bring it back she ended up locking her car with the keys and dress inside.  Again, I have no idea how this is possible. 

The bride remained calm and refused to have the wedding until all was resolved.  If I were the bride, my solution would have been to have the bridesmaid executed.  Problem solved.  Did I say that out loud?  Anyway, once it all got going the wedding was phenomenal…nice people, lots of drinks, great music, etc.

The plan the next day was to head to Megan’s Bay (ranked in the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world by National Geographic).  I loved this as I got a lot of open water swimming practice along the coast.  Crystal clear water, cool fish, and the perfect temperature made swimming out there all day a no brainer. 

That night we hit Starz nightclub which apparently is the place to be in St. Thomas.  If I were skeptical by nature, I may have had reservations about a club that is in a strip mall that had Deloitte’s offices literally directly next door.  But hey, you know me, I don’t have a skeptical bone in my body so I assumed all would be great.  Plus, I’m obviously not one to complain.

As we walked in, we saw the cast of the upcoming Real World and the film crew.  Apparently they are filming in St. Thomas for this season.  The bride and groom had very graciously reserved 3 tables at the club and we had a great area overlooking the dance floor.  The night was going great and I was just starting to find my niche when the power literally went off in the whole club.  The music stopped and it went pitch black.  The island has power outages regularly and the club didn’t have a backup generator.  I’m not kidding.  We sat in the dark drinking with no music.  Some people were breaking out their iphones and playing songs but that wasn’t quite the same thing as having the jams come through the million dollar sound system.  Not even my vast club going experience was enough to know what to do during a pitch black power outage.

After a few days of relaxation switching between beach and pool, Sue and I decided to take an excursion to the British Virgin Islands on an all-day boat adventure.  We first went to Virgin Gorda, where we got to see “The Baths.”  The Baths is a series of rocks and caves that made for a really cool hike.  Here is a picture of me on one of the rocks.  I think I’m either practicing being on a podium for my upcoming triathlons or getting ready to declare to the world that I’m taking over.  I’m not sure which one.

We also went to Tortola, stopped off at various snorkeling locations, and got to listen to the captain from Texas tell racist jokes all day while claiming he isn’t racist.  Classic.  The 2 key takeaways from the day were that the waters were amazingly clear and people everywhere are really stupid. 

As for my workouts on the trip, I did pretty well.  The first day in the gym I saw John King from CNN and here was our interaction:

Me:  “Hey John, glad to see they give you time off.”

John King:  “Everyone deserves a little time off now and then.”

Me:  “I hear ya...big fan by the way…”

John King:  “Appreciate that.”

Me:  “…of Anderson Cooper.”

Ok, so I added that last line but the rest is 100% true.  I also returned his headphone case to him which he had left on the exercise bike.  I thought about stealing it and selling “John King’s headphone case” on Ebay but returning it seemed like the more simple and appropriate thing to do.

In addition to the gym, I also swam nearly every day either in the open water or in the pool.  The open water swimming was very enjoyable as it was great practice for my half ironman coming up.

So, after a great 8 days (minus the minor but fun to mention complaints), I returned home again last night.  On the plane ride back I was thinking that after all the open water swimming fighting the current and waves, getting back in the pool should be a piece of cake.  Given that, I decided to make my first attempt at one of my swimming goals for the year:  200 yard swim in under 2 minutes and 45 seconds. 

For a little context, when I started trying to swim for exercise a year ago I literally couldn’t complete 100 yards straight freestyle.  When I finally built my way up to 200 yards continuously, my time was 4:30.  I’ve been gradually improving over the last year and set the 2:45 goal as an optimistic place to get to this year.  Let’s see how I did...keep in mind that 200 yards is 8 lengths of the pool so this might not be the most exciting video but stick with me.

2:44!!  Are you kidding me?  I honestly had Sue film it just so I could see for myself how I did.  I never thought I would actually achieve that goal already.  I was over 3 minutes last time I tried.  That makes 5 goals completed! 

Despite being in media all her professional career, Sue didn’t exactly capitalize on the moment as she stopped the video right after I touched the wall.  I told her this would be like NBC cutting to commercial just as Michael Phelps hits the wall to win gold and set a new world record.  Anyway, given that, I decided to add a post swim interview with myself as well.  Here it is:

Damn I ‘m good looking.  Sorry, I got caught up watching video of myself.  Anyway, lots of great stuff coming up over the next few weeks…I have my first sprint Triathlon on April 15, I’m planning on a golf weekend April 21, and then have the Half Ironman May 5.  Schmeis35for35 is really ramping up into a critical part of the year.  I’m just hoping most of my travel is behind me.  If not though, at least I’ll have something to complain about.

Schmeis