It just so happens that we just spent the last 2 week-ends away from home. As an added bonus I didn't even get back into town until Tuesday this week. Overall, though, I did pretty well. I managed to keep my meals within the 90/10 rule and I got all but 1 workout done. So let me review the steps I took to make the 2 week-ends away successful.
Scheduling: It may seem a bit OCD, but since I am training pretty hard for my first triathlon only a month away I wanted to make sure to miss as few workouts as possible. In this case [and for both week-ends], I decided up front to forget about swimming and biking and just run while I was away.
Internet search: We went to a couple of different locations, one familiar and one not so much [or at all even]. So we fired up Google and looked to see what the new place would have to offer, see what our options were. In this case, we saw that there would be at least some options for food, so we decided to pack up the breakfast bars and the smoothies and fend for the rest. On the activity side, we saw there was a great network of activity trails so I knew I could get a run in for sure. We also checked the forecast to pack the appropriate gear.
Travelling: Fortunately, we didn't travel very far so we were able to have breakfast and lunch at home, leaving only dinner there. The return trips were a bit trickier, but both week-ends we had the breakfast covered and found that those chopped salads at Subway work just fine. I also grabbed some fruit and a package of rice crackers to fill-in the blanks if needed.
Once there: The first week-end was pretty easy. It was just an overnighter so we found a great Thai place for dinner with excellent veggie bowls and whatnot, and at the end of the day I went for my run right around sunset. Of course I could have picked a better route [more well lit actually] but it was great. The second week-end was a longer excursion, but we know our way around Portland! We took our breakfasts for the duration [it did take a bit of work to get it all together but a small cooler is all we needed to take with us] . Sweet Tomatoes is great for a gynormous-like experience, and that's probably what I would recommend [or any other good salad-bar] if one was going to a decent size city. For smaller towns or faraway places it's a bit more of a challenge...I remember last year I went to Chihuahua Mexico for a week [work], and let me just say that I came home a bit hungry...But again researching as much as possible will help. I got to run on Saturday morning early so the rest of the day wasn't going to be disrupted, it worked out nicely. I did have to extend my trip and go back to Moses Lake on Monday, so I packed 2 running outfits and planned for Monday evening. I got there and made sure to get some fruit and lots of water [dry as hell there] and did it. In hindsight I could have waited a bit longer until it cooled off, it wasn't the best run but I take it as a learning experience. But it did the trick, kept me on schedule.
The takeaway: These 2 week-ends really turned out well. First we had a great time, discovering a new place and also visiting friends and family. Second I was able to keep on track and so I didn't have to stress about anything. We had a plan. So I had to scratch Tuesday's workout, so what? I knew I was going to spend some time in traffic coming home [fucking Seattle traffic, it never fails] so I ended up stopping by Costco for our weekly run, it killed a bit of time and got me out of the car!
So there you have it. A little bit of planning went a long ways. We ate well, I got to run, we had a blast, what more could we ask for?
Until next time,
Oliver P.
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