Category Archives: Goal Setting

5 Ways to Stay Fit When You Travel

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Are you traveling over these upcoming holidays?  Yes?  That means time on the road, possibly in airports and definitely away from home.  It can be very easy to get away from your home based training plan when you travel and that might spell trouble for your spring goal.  Luckily, there are five simple things you can do to stay on track no matter where you are.travel

Pack for activity.  With on demand workouts available 24-7 there’s no reason you can’t train where ever, whenever.  Resistance bands and tubes are small enough to fit in any carry on so there go your excuses.  If your bulky running shoes won’t fit in that carry on, wear them.  Same goes for a heavy cold weather coat.

Schedule activities.  Find out what there is to do in your destination.  Being in a new place is the perfect time to try something new.  You might check out a barre class in vibrant New York City, go for a horseback ride in Wyoming, walk through wine country in Napa or scuba dive in Honolulu.  Canoeing, skiing, dancing and even a long sight seeing walk will keep you moving forward.  Even if it’s not your preferred mode of working on your fitness, any athletic activity will help you prevent a loss of fitness.

Use your hotel.  Yes, they’re usually small, but hotel gyms give you a little space to move around.  Most hold stationary bikes, treadmills, ellipticals and weight machines and some have quite modern, state of the art facilities.  If there’s a pool big enough for laps or pool running, dive in.  Any hotel that’s more than one story features a set of stairs, don’t be afraid to use them.

Keep a food journal.  Remember the 80-20 rule and find healthy choices while you travel.  There’s nothing wrong with an indulgence now and then, we’re only human after all, but remember that too much can set your training back.  Keeping a diary of what you’re eating can help you realize if you’ve gone too far off track simply by bringing awareness.

Expect to have a tough first few days back.  Your body might still be recovering from jet lag or overindulging in food and drink.  Your muscles need a chance to get back in gear, too.  Stay hydrated, especially if you’re flying (8 ounces of water for every hour in the air) and try to plan for a recovery day once you’ve arrived back at home.

Coach Meredith

3 Comeback Tips for a Bad Race

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Fall race season is in full swing.  Sometimes things go well.  Sometimes they don’t.

And having a bad race is pretty much the worst.  Yes, there are horrible things going on in the world but in the moment you cross that finish line after a less than ideal performance things can get emotional.  It’s important to remember that bad races happen and don’t mean the end of your running career.  Look how gracious Meb was after a bad racenot-so-wonderful Olympic experience!  We’re not all that talented but we work hard for those PRs and it hurts to miss a goal.  Here are 3 ways to bounce back after a challenging race:

Vent:  Be angry and sad and frustrated.  Feel all of the feelings.  Let it all out so you can move forward.  It might take one deep breath, maybe a cocktail or beer, possibly days but failing to move on will impede your next training cycle by lowering your confidence and sucking up your motivation.

Evaluate:
Your pre-race ritual:  While you can’t go back and change anything that happened during the race, you can change what happens before.  Did you eat the right food fuel the night before?  Were you sleeping enough?  Was your taper adequate?  Did your travel plans give you time to adjust to the altitude and time difference or recover from flying?  Each of these factors can change your body’s ability to perform at its best.

The Weather:  There’s only so much anyone can do about weather.  And that is a whole lot of nothing.  High winds, freezing temperatures, loads of humidity and heat waves can all have a major impact on your performance.  Sometimes a bad race isn’t all your fault and remember, everyone else out there had to deal with it, too.

Your goal:  Was your goal really reasonable?  Aiming to shave 45 minutes off a marathon over one season is noble but probably not attainable.  Make sure you set feasible goals that push you without bordering on miraculous.

Your training:  How did your training go?  Did it include enough speed work?  How about a long enough base phase?  Did you train for the terrain you would be racing on?  Take a good hard look at your journal to examine what workouts were good and which ones weren’t.  Most importantly, make sure you weren’t over-training or pushing through an injury.

Move on:  At the end of the day, OK, it was a bad race.  Was it the worst race ever in the whole world?  Probably not.  Even more important is to look at all the things you learned and focus on positive parts of the event.  Make sure you’re emotionally ready then go sign up for another.

Coach Meredith

3 Reasons to Run Without Your GPS Watch

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Leaving your GPS watch at home can be scary.  Luckily learning to let go of stats and numbers can be beneficial for lots of reasons.  Want proof?  Here’s why professional runner Molly Seidel started hiding her stats.  Easier than hiding your run data is not taking them it all. Also known as running naked, here are three reasons to take a deep breath and start running with a bare wrist.gps watch

Relaxing.  Leaving the watch at home can be absolutely freeing.  No beeps, no splits, no pressure. Lots of runners are very connected to their tech and discovering that you can rack up miles without it might come as shock.  It is possible, however, and people did this for hundreds of years.  Running sans GPS watch is perfect for recovery runs after a tough workout or race.  It’s also useful for runners in a rut or coming off a big training cycle.  Put the joy in and take the splits out to get back to the core of running: FUN!

See the scenes.  Run the same routes frequently?  Odds are you’re looking at your wrist every time that pesky watch beeps to check on your split.  Since those splits occur at roughly the same spot every time you travel the same route you’re probably too busy looking to notice what’s going on around you.  Abandon the GPS watch at home and open your eyes to scenery you might have been missing.

Run by feel.   Listening to your body is incredibly important.  Easy runs are important and should actually be easy while hard ones should be difficult.  Running naked is a good way to learn how each type feels.  It can open your eyes to potential a prescribed pace was preventing you from seeing.  If you think a 7:00 mile is supposed to be hard and see it on your watch, you might think you’re working harder than you actually are.  Logging some faster miles without the pressure of a watch can lead to big gains and faster races.

Still need data?  Try putting tape over the face of your watch or sticking it in a pocket.  While you won’t see it, stats will still record for your viewing pleasure post run.

Coach Meredith