Travel Running Ups & Downs

I am aware of the silence since my last post (Women's Run Wien race recap), it was due my first business travel since several months. Great opportunity to recap about the ups and downs of exercising (and not only about exercising) while traveling. Apart from being away, this time it is my left calf that is giving me trouble and therefore I am kind of upset about running. I should be logging the longest runs as the NYC marathon is approaching (check out my Team Hole in the Wall page) and instead I am cross training and resting the calf :(

But first things first, last Wednesday we headed towards Munich (me and my two colleagues in a car) to attend a seminar held by one of our suppliers. I generally love to travel, but being quite serious about my training now, the travel requires some preparation. I observed several interesting changes in my behavior:

• You know you are a runner, when first thing you are checking about your hotel is whether they have treadmill available.

• You know you are a runner, when you check your seminar schedule and the opening hours of the gym in order to find out solution of how to squeeze in your training.

• You know you are a runner, when you go for a business trip and half of your carry on luggage is full of running equipment :)

People around already think that we are crazy to run these distances, adjust our diets, sleep patterns etc. So why not add two of my colleagues to this group? :) They looked bit puzzled when I announced that I am heading to the gym and sauna afterwards first thing when we arrived. Little did I know that was the first and the last workout of the three day trip. But more about this in the upcoming post, back to travelling ups & downs.

Among the positives of travel running I found:

• The dreadmill does not seem so dreadful while travelling, since I am so excited that I am able to get my workout done even while travelling.

• If you are lucky, you can go to sauna straight after running if the hotel fitness center has it. Not the case when I am running in a park in my neighborhood. I need to get home, shower and drive to the sauna by car / public transport. Way easier the traveller's way. I have to admit that when I can influence the accommodation choice, I always go for facility with fitness and relax zone.

• The quantities of food I require for fueling myself these days actually makes up for lot of funny remarks and conversation themes without my intentional purpose of doing so. Yes, I am relatively skinny girl and I eat a LOT. Wanna try running as well?

• You can actually get just one glass of wine without the problem of "what will I do with the rest of the bottle?" (My body can only support one, maximum two glasses of wine these days ... I know that does not sound like my gourmet self.)

• The fact that someone else is preparing the food and I just choose and eat it. I loved this especially for the breakfast buffet at the hotel that was really good. Eggs or salmon with cream cheese and grilled tomatoes as the first course, finished with cottage cheese, fruits and nuts for dessert as usual. Who says you cannot eat several courses for a breakfast?

• You get to do fun stuff you normally don't. Like going to the Oktoberfest for first time in your life. Oktoberfest = German biggest beer fest in Munich. Crazy big with huge houses they call tents, there are at least 10 of them and each can seat 6 to 8 thousand people! :o And the beer comes only in one liter size and there is lot of typical beer food like grilled ribs, meat with cabbage and dumplings (German and also Czech speciality), huge pretzels and so on and so on. And outside is a huge entertainment park with lots of attractions, places to get other mainly unhealthy food and have fun :) (see photos bellow the post)

But there are also negatives:

• The schedule sometimes does not allow you to get in the workout :(

• There aren't any passable options among the food choices available to go well with fueling yourself properly as an endurance athlete :(

• You might not get as much sleep as you wish and your body needs :(

And final note: How do you squeeze your workouts in a travelling regimen? Do you have trouble sticking to your diet when traveling? Any useful tips for working out when travelling? Another trip this weekend... Thank you for sharing!

One of the "tents" from inside,
you can see the live band on the podium on right side.

Grilled ribs - immense portion :)

The beer here only comes in one liter size.
(Nutrition remark: I had a Radler = half beer + half soda
like Sprite, would not survive 1 l of beer)

Did not finish, but almost :)
Bread is just unnecessary filling for your stomach in these cases.

Very very cool roller coaster!