Off and Sprinting

OK, no slow spool up time for us.  We're back in action now, having enjoyed 6 long days in port.  On our first full fly day today, we had 3 aircraft break!  That makes for a very busy and frustrating day for the maintenance department and tries our good relationship with the ship.  Our guys did a great job flexing and pulling out new aircraft to keep the flight schedule moving, but it was tough.  It's now past midnight and I still haven't finished the paperwork I wanted to get done today.  I was up at 0400 this morning to get an FCF completed.  We were actually done at 0800 with an up helicopter!  Of course 14 hours later, the aircraft was broken again.  Ugh.

While in port I was able to work out almost every day.  We played tennis most mornings (around 10am), under the 100 degree, humid heat.  Brutal, but fun.  I also ran 30-60 minutes most days, but my runs were on a treadmill.  It was sort of depressing to run on a treadmill on the beach, but it was so nasty outside that running would have been miserable.  Early morning was out of the question.  Plus, we had a requirement to always be with a "liberty buddy".  There's no way I was going to find anyone sober enough to go running in the cool hours of the early morning.

We also enjoyed the 25th floor lounge at our hotel on several of the nights, listening to the sounds of Tulla ("toolah") and the "Online Band", which consisted of her and a keyboard accompanyist who also played their background tracks from a laptop.  Originally from South Africa, they seemed to enjoy having our big crowd up there each night and interacted with us between their sets.  A couple of nights, I called and talked to the girls from the balcony of the 25th floor while the rest of the group was inside listing to Tulla's smooth vocals.

Most days I played tennis and ran in the morning, maybe a little pool time, maybe did a little shopping in the afternoon, then enjoyed a relaxing dinner in the evening.  On the last day, I went skiing at Ski Dubai at the Mall of the Emirates.  The ski run took about 45 seconds to go down.  During my 2 hour pass, I estimated that I got about 16 runs done.  It was freezing cold inside the indoor mountain.  Pretty amazing.  A friend took some pictures and when I can get them from him, I'll post them later.

I managed to get a run in today as well, after a short nap before lunch (which I skipped in favor of the run).  About 30 minutes is all I can take in the hangar bay.  The heat and humidity is almost unbearable.  Every time I run down there, right about 10 minutes into the run, I start to sweat profusely and by 15 minutes I'm completely soaked.  My heart rate steadily climbs throughout the run.  Avg HR for the first half was about 130.  For the second half was about 145, peaking around 152, even at a nice slow 9:30 pace.  It was nice to run in new running shoes which I also found during my last day in port.  I had to give up my search for Asics shoes, which are my favorite.  Saucony had to do this time.  They're pretty comfortable, and much better cushioned that my old beat down shoes.

That's the latest on me.  The schedule remains very busy for us, especially with the rate of maintenance issues we've had recently.  I'm also preparing to turn over the maintenance department and to move into operations during the next several weeks.  That will be a big shift for me.  Never a dull moment.