Staying on track while away from home

First of all, sorry about that last post. I suppose some of you are blaming me for the decidedly nasty turn in the weather. In fairness, I had the idea for that post during one of those glorious 70+ degree days.  But if you need a scapegoat for the 180 turn from fair to downright awful, I can take it.

On a happier note, summer often marks a season of travel for many folks as they take advantage of school holidays and the like. While travel is obviously a great time, it can cause concern for those of you who may be trying to stick to a training or fitness regimen.

Here are a few tips to keep on track without unraveling your fitness while keeping your travel companions happy.

1. Modify your long run schedule – look ahead to the week of your vacation and see how you can modify the week ahead or week behind such that your travel week is a recovery or week of lesser mileage.

Here is an example:

Example planned long run schedule: 

Long Run: 10

Long Run: 11 miles

Long Run (vacation): 12 miles

Long Run: 8 miles

Long Run: 12 miles

Modified long run schedule: 

Long Run: 10

Long Run: 11

Long Run (vacation): 5 miles

Long Run: 12 miles

Long Run: 10 miles

2. Make is a recovery week – Consider the whole week of travel a maintenance or recovery week and focus on getting in 3 quality runs. Three runs of as short as 30 minutes is plenty to maintain your fitness and not lose ground in the overall scheme.

3. Run early – Try to run early in the morning while everyone is still sleeping or enjoying their morning coffee. You can check it off your list, run guilt free and still have the rest of the day to enjoy time with your family and friends. 

4. Keep in short and quick – Reduce the time of your runs but make them harder so you get the most bank for your buck!. For example:

30 minute ladder run – Repeat this cycle 2 times through

5 minutes easy

4 minutes moderate

3 minutes somewhat hard

2 minutes hard

1 minute very hard

5. Take advantage of playful cross training opportunities – swimming, water skiing, cycling, and more can all be fun family activities that get your heart pumping and contribute to your over all cardiovascular fitness.

6. Use your runs to explore your destination and scope out fun shops and restaurants that you can visit with your family later in the day.

Most importantly, have fun….you’re on vacation for crying out loud!

Run for your lives,

Bree