Saturday, June 27, 2009

Traveling No Problem For Training

As I write this post, one of my good training friends was going vacationing in San Diego (okay, I’m not jealous!). Before she left, she asked me about finding places to train as we’re both working toward the Hy-Vee Triathlon.

I told her this was a perfect opportunity to do some open-water training in the biggest “drink” in the world and I also told her to contact a bike rental outfit for some scenic biking. I informed her, “With a little pre-planning and contacts, you can have some awesome training outings.” Sure enough, when we went on a run prior to her trip, she told me she had made all the arrangements for swimming and biking. She was excited to find her hotel had a lap pool as well.

We’re all busy traveling this summer and sometimes all we have to do is “ask”. On a recent trip to Philadelphia, I called ahead to find that my hotel had a lap pool and a wonderful workout facility. And you can’t resist a run to the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art while listening to the theme from “Rocky” in your Ipod.

On various trips to St. Louis and Florida to visit relatives, I always find bike trails to travel that are new and different. You might try looking for running events when you travel as well. When I visit my sisters in Chicago, I find a race event nearly every weekend I’m in town. And when I visit Steamboat Springs this summer for my son’s Triple Crown World Series, I’m checking out bike rentals so I can “ride like Lance” through some mighty hills!

These are just a few ideas to spur your creativity to keep training up while you travel. Don’t make travel an excuse to miss workouts. Take travel as an opportunity to change your training scenery. I always find that a welcome distraction. Chances are you'll be visiting somewhere fun soon as we head into the summer tourism season!

Here’s an article from http://www.runnersworld.com/ that offers more tips on training and travel -- http://tinyurl.com/moeaez.

1 comment:

Robin said...

Good post! Training while traveling is a great way to really see a new city or country as a regular person and not a tourist. Getting up early in the morning, you see the real side of a place and people. I remember running through a herd of Yorkshire sheep, or through rice paddies in Japan, swimming past spearfishermen headed out into the Indian ocean. Some of my favorite travel memories are from training.