Vacation + Running = ??

Vacation and consistent running don’t always mix well for me.

First, I am such a creature of habit. I love having a schedule; knowing exactly what I’m going to be doing and when I’m going to be doing it. When something disrupts that schedule, I get thrown for a loop and don’t get as much accomplished as I could (should? would?) have normally. Without a specific plan on a weekend, I can very easily and quickly waste two whole days as a lazy lump on the couch, not even bothering to get dressed. This is why I like to get my run in first thing on Saturday morning. With my run accomplished, I have the momentum to keep going for the rest of the weekend…well, the rest of Saturday, at least.

Vacations throw the schedule right out the window. Whoosh!

As running has become a larger part of my life and who I am, I’ve been getting better at carving out vacation time to run. I’ve hoped on a few treadmills in hotel gyms (never great) and I managed a run or two in Bar Harbor, Maine, even hopping on a trail in to Acadia National Park (awesome). I’m better about getting in runs while I am in Vermont visiting my parents (mostly because my Mom expects me to run and will ask me whether I’m going out the next day…she even drives me to a great location to run, how could I not run). This past vacation to Miami proved to be the best in terms of running consistently; mainly, because I made running a part of my regular “vacation” schedule.

Since Mike was in a conference most of the time we were in Miami, I got used to waking up and going out for a run. It is what I did every morning – wake up, nibble on something, go out for a run on the beach, come back, shower, eat breakfast, hit the pool or beach by 10. This became my norm – day in, day out.

Not a bad way to vacation, huh?

However, this routine was thrown out the window (whoosh!) when Mike’s conference ended. This brings me to the second reason vacationing and running don’t mix well for me. I am very reluctant for my running to cut in to the time I spend with Mike. It’s why I run in the morning and why I’m so bad with running after work or weekend afternoons. Vacation time equals our time and I hate to intrude on our time with me time. I know Mike wouldn’t mind but I hate to do it anyway.

It’s OK though. I loved my early morning beach runs as much as I loved sleeping in and sitting on beach with Mike the rest of the time. This was my view for most of my time in Miami. Who could resist the urge to be lazy?

We got plenty of walking in and I even managed to sneak in some kayaking.

Vacation Recap:
Sunday – XT, Kayaking
Monday – 9.4 mile run (4.5 miles on the beach – running on the beach is HARD!)
Tuesday – 10 mile run
Wednesday – 9.3 mile run (first 5 miles w/ intervals, 6 minutes easy/1 minute hard)
Thursday – 5.8 mile run (nice and easy, my legs are tired)
Friday – touristy walking
Saturday – mostly just sitting, reading and napping on the beach *sigh*

Break from Running

I took a break from running last weekend and it felt good. No, I’m not “not running.” After running for 7 days straight (it was my longest “streak” of running ever, though it can hardly be called that in comparison to these streaks), I felt good and I probably would have kept it up for another day or two but then life happened.

We went camping in Shenandoah National Park for the weekend (more on that later – once I’ve downloaded the pictures off my camera) and instead of running, I did a good bit of hiking and spent even more time sitting around a campfire, relaxing and eating. At first, I was a little concerned about the lack of running I would be doing over the weekend. Running had been going so well and I felt so strong that I didn’t want to break whatever magic I had working for me. I even made sure to pack running clothes and trail shoes, thinking maybe I could sneak off in the morning.

However, I realized that this attitude, worrying about running and a schedule and numbers and streaks, it wasn’t in line with my new attitude toward running. “Just Run” is about setting aside the anxieties that come with the complications of running certain workouts on certain days hitting certain paces without regard for mind and body. It really as simple as it sounds – just run – and can even mean not running, I realized. I shouldn’t stress about getting a run in while we were camping. We were hiking up mountains during the day. That’s what the weekend was about, not running.

After coming home Saturday evening, Sunday morning I work up in my own bed and of course my first thought upon waking was “up and at ‘em, time to run” but then I stopped myself. I slept in that day, allowed my body to recover from the hiking, and we ended up taking a long bike ride to Alexandria for lunch (over 20 miles, round trip).

Monday morning, I woke up refreshed and eager to run and I have felt that way on my runs since Monday.

It’s OK that I didn’t run and it is probably exactly what my body needed, a mini-vacation from running on my mini-vacation. Just what the doctor ordered!

Daily Dozen:
3.58 miles @ recovery pace, early morning
Core workout @ lunch break (planned)

My Day on the Bunny Slopes

This past weekend we headed up to Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania for a weekend of skiing and other fun things to do in the snow.

Saturday morning we were up early, enjoying the free breakfast at our hotel (me up even earlier for a scheduled run) and discussing the day ahead of us. Our plan was to get to the ski resort early, get our gear and join a beginner's ski lesson so that we would have the afternoon to enjoy the slopes.

We worked our way through the process of buying tickets, getting our ski boots, trying to figure out how to put them on, getting our skis, clumsily carrying them outside, finding the right ski poles and then finally getting out on the snow and coming to the realization that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing.

Prior to this weekend, I had been skiing one time, while I was in college with some friends who had been skiing most of their lives. That day, I skipped the lesson and let my friends "teach me" a few things before they grew incredibly bored and headed off for the hard slopes. The only thing that stuck with me from that day was that I fell down a lot and that falling was the only method I could work out for stopping.

Obviously, this was not the most positive experience I could have had with skiing.

Fresh off the fun we had learning to cross-country ski with my parents, I put the one experience I had with skiing out of my head and went in to this with the mindset of a totally newbie, which let's be honest, I am.

Anyway, we met up with a ski instructor, George, who took us through an hour and a half lesson, where we started out skiing without our skis and by the end we were slowly making our way down the bunny slope in lazy S-shaped turns. We "French-fry-ed" and "Pizza-ed" our way down a mountain and I am happy to report that by the end of the lesson I felt reasonably confident.

With a short break for lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon going up and down the easy slope and Mike and I even worked our way over to the next slope with a mix of easy and intermediate.

It was a very fun day and I really enjoyed learning a new sport. Despite the cold fingers and toes, the long waits for the lift, and the next few days of soreness (what a workout for your thighs and hips!), I had a great time and erased all my previous misconceptions about downhill skiing.

I am really interested in making it back to the mountain one more time before the season ends and definitely going back next year.

(Mini) Vacation Running

This weekend we took a weekend mini-vacation to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to go skiing. Before leaving, I mapped out a run that would take me through downtown Gettysburg and several of the surrounding battlefields. I was looking forward to the novel sights and sounds of running a different route.

However, winter once again got in the way of my plans.

Pulling in to the parking lot of the hotel, I started to have apprehensions about the likelihood of my run taking place as planned because the hotel was on a busy highway with no sidewalk and very little shoulder due to the piles of snow that had accumulated because of plowing. After settling in, we walked across the street to get a snack and the ground was a solid sheet of ice in most places. I resigned myself to a no-go run, decided to sleep in and started making plans to run after we got home on Sunday.

The next morning, to my surprise I woke up with plenty of time to get in a run (without the alarm) and after laying in bed for a few minutes I realized I had no excuse not to get up and check out the hotel’s gym.

By 6:30 I was on the hotel’s only treadmill, trying to figure out how it worked. There was no manual button, only buttons for pre-programmed workouts most of them with significant inclines and speeds up to a fast walk, and none of them longer than 30 minutes. After a few frustrating minutes, I just started one of the programs, upped the speed and decreased the incline EVERY TWO MINUTES as it would try to force me through the programmed settings.

Rather than give in to the frustration, I told myself that I could make the most of it since it might actually make the indoor miles go by much quicker. Any in fact, the first 30 minutes and 3 miles did seem to go by pretty quickly. I jumped off the treadmill, did a quick set of pushups and then jumped right back on.

I set the program again and started running but I was determined to find a manual setting. The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. What kind of treadmill wouldn’t have a manual setting? This is insane. I graduated from college. I cannot let a treadmill defeat me.

And then I found, buried three deep under some category that didn’t make any sense. Satisfied that I hadn’t been beaten by a piece of machinery, I settled in for the next hour or 6 miles of running; eager to just while away the time and get the run over with.

I listened to some podcasts – Smodcast and two episodes of This American Life and just bopped along.

About halfway through that second hour, another hotel guest decided to gym me in the gym. He turned on the TV, warmed up and hit the universal gym weight machine.

And then a second guy came in to the gym. I had seen this gym peek in to the gym about a half hour early and this time he decided to stay. He climbed on the recumbent bike next to me, peddled very slow and kept throwing glances in my direction.

Ten minutes later, two more people show up. This gym consists of one treadmill, one bike, one elliptical and a universal gym weight machine so it is officially over-crowded at this point. The bike guy’s glances are getting more and more impatient.

I stop the treadmill a little less than a half mile short of the 9 planned miles and gave up on the run. I was a little bummed that I couldn’t finish out the run in relative piece and quiet but I have to respect that I had hogged the machine for most of the morning.

Oh well. At least I was able to run while on vacation and I felt great being able to start my day better than I had thought I would be able to start it. I was ready to face a day on the bunny slopes!