Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Flexibility Required When Traveling

I knew it would be difficult to get my goal miles in over the weekend and the beginning of this week because of a business trip to Atlanta from Saturday, April 24 - Tuesday, April 27. Day by day, I tried my best to meet my goal, but normally fell short. I'm not too worried about it, more-so happy that I was able to get some descent runs in over the trip.

I had originally planned on running 25 miles on Saturday morning, but things came up and I had to postpone my run. So, I planned on running once I arrived in Atlanta Saturday evening. But, I received a call around 3:30 letting me know my flight was canceled due to weather in Tennessee and Georgia. I quickly shifted gears, changed into my running gear and went out for an evening run. If you have a busy schedule, it's so important to be flexible and be ready to get your workout in when time permits, so that's exactly what I did. I only managed 20 of the planned 25 miles, but felt good to get most of my run in at the end of the night.

My rescheduled flight left Sunday morning. Got up early, caught my flight, grabbed a cab to the hotel, changed and was off to my conference. I didn't get out of the conference until after 6:30 Sunday night, so I knew I was going to again fall well short of my planned 15 miles for the day. I was really hoping for 10. I picked out a route from my hotel to Piedmont Park because I heard this was a descent place to run. Unfortunately, the 2 mile route to the park was in a not so great area of Atlanta, and I knew I didn't want to be running through that area after dark. I tried to keep a good pace so I could get as close to 10 miles in before the sun went down. Piedmont Park was actually really nice. I ran some of the paved walkways, some stairs, and a gravel track. I have been wanting to record some sections of my runs recently, so I gave it a try on this run. Below is a short clip of the gravel track at Piedmont Park where I ran a few miles.




As soon as the sun started to set, I began to head back to the hotel. I had to stop at a light at the corner of 12th Ave and Piedmont Ave near the entrance of Piedmont Park. So, I took a quick video clip there:



Finally, as I headed down Piedmont Ave back toward my hotel, I took one last video clip.



I definitely have lots of room for improvement with my "filming on the run" capabilities. I'm going to continue to work on this so I can hopefully get some good clips during some of my ultra events. Need to see if I can filter my breathing out too.. kind of annoying in the video!

Anyway, Monday turned out to be another busy day at the conference. I was supposed to lift in the evening, but I don't like lifting in gyms, so I opted out of trying out the hotel gym. Instead, I took an "interesting" walk to Whole Foods to pick up dinner. The closest Whole Foods was about 2 miles away. It seemed like every 1/4 mile or so I would switch from being in a nice neighborhood to a sketchy neighborhood. I didn't even make it to Whole Foods until almost 8PM. Once there, I picked up a delicious dinner consisting of grilled chicken, grilled salmon, cajun sweet potato, and a protein shake. I opted for the cab back to the hotel to enjoy my well-deserved Whole Foods dinner!

Tuesday I had a 12 mile run planned. Monday night I planned on doing this early Tuesday before the conference started. Notice how many times I say "planned" over the course of this trip? Well, Tuesday was another day to be flexible with the schedule. I got up Tuesday and needed to catch an early flight due to some issues that needed resolved back at work. After the flight back and resolving the work issue, I finally got to get back to my workout that was planned for Tuesday morning. I did some ab/core work, ran 12 miles, and then got my chest/shoulder workout in. It turned out to be a very productive evening in terms of working out - being flexible=good!

Now I'm back on track to finish out April with some good morning runs and evening workouts!

3 comments:

  1. Piedmont park is really nice. Your description of two blocks nice two blocks war zone is pretty accurate especially Boulevard. Where did you stay on piedmont?

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  2. I stayed at Sheraton Atlanta on Courtland St. NE. I ran down to Piedmont Ave(?) from there and then up to the park. Your description is funny.. quite accurate! I also walked from the hotel to the Whole Foods in Midtown(?). That was interesting as well...

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  3. Neat videos Brian! A really cool way to see the city! See, I would have been suckered in to running on the hotel treadmill...Good for you to get out there and get some miles in the "scenic" way! Glad you made it back safe from Whole Foods!!!

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