Training While Traveling

I had the best of intentions when packing to go film in Atlanta and then travel to Boston and Connecticut to see friends and family. I packed my running shoes, pants, Garmin watch and various lengths of running shirts. Heck, during filming I woke up early one morning and contemplated hitting the gym. Instead,  I rationalized with my sleep deficit more sleep would be better. Instead of going to the gym, I slept and then had breakfast of waffles and peanut butter.

My trip to Boston was no better. I saw some good friends and sure, it’s Boston so there was walking, but staying an extra day to walk the Freedom Trail held no appeal. The most walking I did was from my friend’s house to the T stop (a half mile) and then taking a circuitous route from his office in the Prudential Center to my other friend’s work at Boylston and Tremont. In Boston, again, I had failed at carving out time to exercise. What I was successful in doing was drinking copious (for me) amounts of alcohol and eating terrific food while seeing friends.

And, what did I do when I got to Connecticut? You’d think possibly the week and a half I had at my parents’ would garner some exercise. Hardly. The most I did was walk a mile every other day with my mom and her horse. These short walks were often followed by a nap. Okay, so maybe I was over 8 hours behind on my weekly sleep goal of 56 hours a week. There are two times in my life I remember sleeping as much as I did,  the first was the weeks after my brain surgery when eating breakfast would tax me so much it often resulted in a 4 hour nap. The second time was the summer after I graduated college, and before I left for Los Angeles. I know sleep shouldn’t be the enemy. But, there is so much I want to do.  One thing that changed my attitude on naps was reading that Ryan Hall takes naps. Ryan friggin Hall naps! Holy moly.

Did I get any runs in during my trip? No. In fact, I left feeling fat and bloated from eating too much and not exercising.  On the other hand, I was deeply satiated by seeing family and friends. Now that I'm back in Los Angeles I can refocus. Sure, these miles are going to be more difficult. Prior to the shoot I felt like I couldn’t take time away from pre-production and invest time to run. This was a setback. This is also insane mind you. We are always going to have things that are going to clamor for our attention. If we want to live a long healthy life, we need to carve out time for us to maintain our fitness goals.

Back to square one. Again. I logged some slow short miles this week and next week will be more of the same. In all likelihood many of the coming weeks will be slow short runs before I feel ready to tackle an official marathon training program.