On the Road Again

In my first "new" post I mentioned I have a new job which puts me "in the air" quite a bit more than before.  To be specific I travel from SW MI to Northern California at least 3 days of each month.  In many months I will spend 6+ days in and around San Francisco - not bad eh?!  I just returned from one of these trips, the first since signing up for IM CDA 2011.  So I spent some of my free time scouting places where I can incorporate some training into my travels.  After giving "travel training" some consideration I think its going to be a lot easier than I orginally thought.

Fitting a pair of running shoes into my bag is pretty easy - I've mastered art of packing light!  I hate running on a treadmill and will brave most any weather condition to avoid it - running outside is much more enjoyable, even in the freezing cold.  When I travel west, I have often stayed in one of a variety of East Bay suburbs close to the office where I have meetings, however, in a recent stay, I decided I was going to try downtown SanFran for a change of pace.  After a long day of traveling, I checked into the hotel, strapped on my running shoes and hit the streets.  Having just left the insane heat and humidity of the midwest, the mid 60s temp was a welcome change and my run was fantastic.  Not only did I get in a good 5.25 miles, but I saw a bunch of the city that I had yet to explore!  I even scoped out a neighborhood to check out for dinner later that evening!  Running on the road?  CHECK - easy as bringing your shoes and getting a map.  I will begin to track my out of town runs on mapmyride.com so I can easily refer back when I am at a loss for where to start!

Cycling is out.  Finding a way to get a bike all the way to the west coast along with my shoes, helmet, etc. - just too much to handle!  And God knows I do not want to ride any of those stationary bikes in the lame hotel gyms.  The best I am likely to do is get on a stairclimber where available - it will help build my strength which is going to be incredibly important for the climbs in CDA!

Swimming - a cap, suit and goggles fold up pretty small.  They will fit in my bag, but my local pool will not.  Luckily, NorCal is a bit of a swimming mecca.  Kids swim there like they play baseball and soccer in the midwest and apparently those kids grow up and join large, very active masters programs.  The result - a lot of public access pools with great masters programs with open lap swim times.  I found one in the East Bay very close to the office where a day pass cost me $4.50.  The pool is large, outside AND converts to a long course for the evening session!  Fantastic!  I hope to frequent this place more often on my future travels West!

So, net/net getting in some training on the road shouldn't be too hard.  It may take a bit more effort and advanced planning, but it shouldn't be too tough to arrange my schedule so I run and swim while on the road.  Here's to you NorCal - let's become training partners!