Hi Blogitiness Readers! My name is Kiersten from Twenty-Six for a Twenty-Something and I am super excited to be doing a guest post. Michelle is traveling a lot this month, which sometimes leads a little slacking on the fitness front. This is fine if you only travel occasionally, we all need some rest periods, but if you travel frequently you have to be pretty creative and motivated to stay on track. My job requires me to be on the road 250+ days a year, and I also travel quite a bit on my personal time, but I still manage to successfully train for marathons, half-marathons, triathalons, and bike races. I am currently trying to complete a marathon on all 7 continents!
Running is my go to workout when traveling because you don’t need a lot of gear. The treadmill bores me to tears, so I try to find a way to run outside if at all possible. It’s worth it to spend a little time researching your destination before you go, so that you don’t end up running somewhere unsafe, or get stuck running laps around the hotel parking lot. Here are a few strategies I use.
-Look for a running club at your destination. They might have group runs you can join, have route maps on their website, or if you e-mail them, be willing to provide some advice. I’ve yet to get a negative response when trying to hook up with a running club where I’ll be traveling.Running in the USA has a great list of running clubs around the country.
-Check out a Running Route Website. There are quite a few website where people can post routes they like to run. Try US Track and Field; Map my Run; Walk Jog Run, and Runner’s World
-Use your blogger connections to find a running buddy in your destination. If I have time before my trip I look for running blogs set in my destination. Best case scenario is that I connect with the blogger and we meet up in person. Even when that isn’t possible, they should at least be able to provide some tips on good places to run.
-Use Google Maps to scout out potential routes. I always look around my hotel for residential areas and parks as I like to get away from the traffic.
-Use the hotel parking lot or parking garage as a track substitute. There have been places where I didn’t feel safe running on the roads, so I did a lot of loops around the hotel parking lot. This can get boring pretty quickly so I like to turn it into speed work. For example alternate sprinting up one row of cars, and then recover by jogging up the next row. This is also a good opportunity to mix in some drills like high knee skips, side shuffles, and backward running.
Happy Running Road Warriors!
