100% Travel For Work
Hey all,
I'm in the process of finding a new job and a couple of the positions I'm considering involve a LOT of travel. As in fly out Sunday night or Monday morning and returning Thursday night or Friday morning. Jobs with this much travel are pretty common, especially for consultants, so I figure someone on the team is in this situation.
How do you get in your midweek bike workouts? Do you stack them up Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? Just trying to sort this out.
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I am very interested in seeing what responses you get. My situation is similar, however I usually only travel 1 week a month, with an occasional 2x month. Usually I am able to travel out later on Monday's so what I have done during the OS is:
Mon: do Tues ride in AM before leaving for airport
Tue: OFF....maybe do the 'brick run' depending on how I feel
Wed: scheduled Run
Thur: OFF (and try to get a really good night's sleep since I am in a hotel w/ nothing to do)
Fri: do Thursday bike after getting home
Sat: as scheduled
Sun: as scheduled
I don't know what I am going to do once I start my HIM and IM plans.
Hope this helps,
Joe
I just wrapped up the OS and am starting a HIM prep, then a IM prep. Luckily there's only one mid-week bike to worry about there. One thing I was considering is trying to work with the hotel or extended stay hotel to keep my road bike and trainer there. Then ride my tri bike on the weekends.
The prep schedule goes:
Mon: Swim + Run
Tues: Swim
Wed: Bike + Brick Run
Thurs: Long Run
Fri: Long Swim
Sat: Long Bike + Brick Run
Sun: Steady Bike
I'm not sure how an IT consulting gig works, but a business consulting friend used to travel the same schedule, though he'd be going to the same place for weeks at a time. If your job worked like this you could check out local bike shops for rentals if you really wanted to ride a "real" bike. Though I can only imagine this being worthwhile if you went multiple weeks in a row, otherwise too much work!
I don't think stacking them would be good for a couple of reasons, you are doing it after a long Thursday run which means you are tired going into the Friday ride. And two days of riding in a row is hard enough, adding a third day I'd imagine it would quickly start to decrease the effectiveness of that Saturday brick during the IM build. That long swim on Friday is a good "rest" day before Saturday's fun fest. If you were going to switch it around, I'd probably push the long run to Wednesday, long swim on Thursday, do Saturday bike/brick on Friday, Sunday bike on Saturday, and Wednesday brick on Sunday. That way you are going in fresh to the most important ride of the week. Though 1. this sounds like it would suck and 2. doing that long of a ride on Friday might be tough if you had to do it after work (especially in Chicago!)
I think I've given you enough of my .02
I travel a ton (actually am typing this thanks to American Airlines and GoGo in-flight internet!!). My general approach to training on the road is:
(a) No biking...if I was 4 days a week in the same place for a length of time I might ship my trainer and a bike and leave it at the hotel. But I am all over the world with no consistency or predictability, so not an option for me. I do not use stationary bikes in hotel workout rooms because of a fear of injury due to poor "fit" -- no idea if that is warranted but I've had a fit-induced knee injury before so I'm not willing to risk it.
(b) Lots of running. I hate the treadmill so I do reasearch on good places to run outdoors before I go somewhere, or ask the hotel concierge for a local running map (most hotels have a few routes on paper).
(c) Lots of swimming. In hotel pools!! This one can be tough because very few are more than 40...FEET. And sometime you come down to the pool and there are a bunch of kids on vacation playing and you have no choice but to turn around and head back upstairs.
Some of my colleagues who have a more predictable travel schedule to a consistent set of places join a local health club or get a community membership to a college fitness center so as to have access to a proper 25-yard or more pool. I wish I could do that when swimming laps in a 42-foot Marriott pool sometimes!!
In terms of a weekly schedule, the unpredictability of my calendar means that I cannot commit to specific workouts on particular days of the week. So I play it by ear a bit, and try to plan things a day our two ahead based on where I will be so I think I can hit the workouts in each disclipline by the end of the week.
I also find myself doing crazy things like a huge bike ride on the trainer when I get home at 9pm on a Thursday after a 10 hour flight from London. My wife thinks this is just nuts. But as long as it does not compromise my energy to the point where I get weak, then it is just part of the crazy lifestyle. I'm sure not going to skip that workout then give up spending time with my kids the next morning because I need to get the bike work in.
Cheers,
Matt
I am a pilot on 7on 7 off schedule. I leave on Sunday AM for 7 days, return the next Saturday PM or late evening. Once I leave on the road the schedule is totally unpredictable and many, many days go over 12hrs, some up to 14hrs. Run and triathlon training on this schedule is all I have ever known. So, I have a week on the road and a week at home. I have no freedom in booking hotels in favorable locations or with fitness centers....company does it and it greatly varies. I mostly work domestic US with occasional trips to islands, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and Canada.
I can give you a very detailed account, it would take too long. Like some of us, I "suffer from a major OCD", my workouts have to get done. Recovery is more of a problem than workouts most times on the road as I have no control over the schedule. One day I am up at 3AM for a transcon, spend the night on the East Coast, next day 3PM show for a transcon back to West Coast......Rockies (elevation) one day, Florida (heat/humidity) the next, Minnesota (North Pole) the next.........
Swimming: swimmersguide.com
No hotel pool swimming for me. I refuse to do that, like Matt wont get on a stationary bike. I look pools up there, go swim, sometimes pay, sometimes free, hit and miss. Depends a lot on a location where you are staying. Most of the time, I end up in a hot YMCA pool somewhere, they are the most wide spread, with the most chlorine and the hottest, some at 86F, scary.
Biking: stationary bikes, yeah baby, I am that dork tearing up either a hotel or a nearby gym stationary bike, I do wipe it down when I get done, I swear.
Running: the easiest to do, I run everywhere, around the airports, streets, tracks, treadmills.........FR 305 is my friend.
Schedule: I found that the OS week template fits me the best. HIM plan, that biking weekend never works for me, so it will most likely remain something that looks like OS week but will separate the the long run and bike. The road week may even have all the elements of OS week as doing 2hrs+ in a hot hotel room on a stationary bike leads only to heat exhaustion and not much fitness gains, so I would rather put there 60min of eyeballs coming out and save the volume for the week at home.
It can be done. It will take more planning and creativity to execute. As I said, that is all I have ever known still clocked in some decent times across the board, even a 4:39 HIM at 2009 LC Nationals and last year 4th M35-39 AG at 70.3 Branson.
Also, when I am done training, I am DUN, I want to zone out on the couch as I am mentally exhausted from worrying how my workouts are going to get done. I drop an anchor at the end of the season and zone out running with my wife, recovering mentally.
You are in for a real treat. Good luck. On another note, I will tell you how is to run around Houston Hobby airport or South Central LA. War stories some other time.
@Dottie, thank you very much for these kind words. It would be so cool flying a fellow EN team member.
@Jeff, some more general insight into organizing your week.
I think that EN principles apply so well in our case. Quality over quantity, forget about the volume. Focus on executing key workouts. Nothing really changes from what you have been doing.
Define a week template that will be repeatable over and over and the one that considers all your specific scheduling issues. The more consistent your issues are, the more consistent the week can be.
Something to keep in mind with the consulting lifestyle. It puts a huge stress on the body. Working crazy hours, air travel and sucking up to clients takes it toll. Add training volume onto that and you have to stay very focused on not beating your body down. I can't even describe how it feels to wake up at 3 in the monring to do my long run and then find myself at a client dinner that night at a steakhouse at 11 pm. You just want to curl up under the table and go to sleep. The final thing to keep in mind is your family life as well. You have to squeeze all of the family time into 3 days a week. Keep your eye on balancing all of these, and not stressing out or you will head quickly into burnout.
John, AT, Matt A - You guys amaze me. Your dedication to fitness, much less training, in the face of a chaotic lifestyle is inspiring. Nutrition must also be a challenge.
One of the other things that I do for nutrition is that I have ritualized it. I get into an eating pattern and tend to stick with it when I am on the road. It takes the thinking out of the mix.