Cornucopia

Staying active while traveling for work can be challenging. Yes, most of my non-late-night training occurs when I'm isolated from the family life but not having consistent exercise venues often leads to creative heart rate raising techniques. 

I always integrate simple body weight exercises when on the road. Some days it's just one set of pushups to stretch out my airplane seat back slouch. Sometimes I put on my loaded work backpack and do squats to exhaustion. Multi-story hotels make for great stair climbs. Other days I'll go through a full yoga routine. 

For aerobic activity, though, I rely on running. I try to explore the city I'm in as much as possible by foot. I search for local running clubs and find their trails or parks. I go on MapMyRun and find public running routes. Sometimes I just walk out of my hotel and run away for a couple miles then turn around and trace my steps back. I've found some gorgeous urban parks (Cherokee Park in Louisville, KY), beautiful suburban trails (The Wissahickon in Philadelphia), and scenic river trails in cities where I least expected scenery (the paved river trails in Dayton, OH). I've admired downtown skylines from the Ohio Street Beach trail in Chicago, The Venetian Causeway in Miami and the Cherry Creek Path in Denver. I've stumbled across group runs who invited me to join (Chicago), was asked to join a hill-climb session where I almost vomited in front of 30 strangers (Louisville) and did impropmtu intervals with a complete stranger in Long Beach, CA. 

Unfortunately, fitting all of my cold weather running gear into my carry-on duffel isn't always possible, so for a few months of the year I'm relegated to hotel treadmills. Many hotels pride their "fitness center" listing on trip advisor, almost always including a photo of their gym that I'm certain was taken by a realtor that was trying to convey a sense of openness that you'd often find in residential home sale listings. But more often than not those same "spacious" fitness centers are populated by secondhand equipment and smell like the equipment room in a community pool. Elliptical machines that creak like old Ford Taurus doors. Recumbent stationary bikes that rock from side to side every time you pedal. Mismatched dumbbells and yoga mats that look like floor mats after a Minnesota spring season. And of course, second hand treadmills. Some that can't keep a desired pace. Some that only have one speed. Some that have a hitch in their belt that catches every third step. Some whose belts are crooked and start to smell like burnt rubber. That one that has a loud clang with every step. One that is jammed at an incline of 10. One whose television screen is stuck on the Hallmark Channel. The one that overlooks the hotel kiddie pool. 

I've seen them all. Some multiple times. But the worst is the hotel with just one treadmill. These hotel fitness centers are the Cornucopias of the corporate travel Hunger Games arenas.

I tried to use that treadmill five times during this 2-day trip. Three times last night, over a span of two hours, only to find three different people walking on it. One early this morning but was denied by another runner on his 5th mile when I peeked through the door. My final visit to the fitness center found it completely empty. Surprised, I inserted my key card and was greeted with the red light on the handle. Locked. I swiped it 6 more times to be sure and, sure enough, my card didn't work. 

I walked back down to my room (4 doors away) and just as I swiped my card to go in to shower in defeat the hotel janitor yelled "Hey bud, I got it for you!"

He explained that the key reader doesn't recognize anyone but hotel staff and he's trying to fix it today. I thanked him as he stuffed a blue-striped towel into the door frame and logged my first run of 2016. 

I've restarted my training regime a few times in the last couple years. Each time was met with a home sale or moving into our rental home or preparing for our home purchase or fracturing my foot or our second move, but with all of that behind us and now getting settled in our new digs, I'm back at it for the new year and have my sights set on re-losing this inch in waist size. 

Here's to finding new trails, tuning out the creaks of ill-kept treadmills and not splitting this pair of slacks before that happens.