Vacation is better for me with exercise. Sure, it’s nice to relax and enjoy good food and comforts, but I just have an overall better experience if exercise continues to be part of most days.
With time on my hands I enjoy keeping my core base and running at a relaxing pace. It’s feel good jogging and exercising, a little challenge added for spice. Doing it first thing tends to charge me up for a good day.
During a recent trip to Orlando I got to push my endurance more than usual for a vacation by doing the local parks. Of the ~75 miles covered in 9 days, only ~30 were from running. The other ~45 were mostly walked at the parks.
The parks can be fun but for me it was much tougher to stroll miles a day eating park food than it’d be to run more mileage with my race nutrition. Granted, I was on my feet much longer but then there’s the noise and screaming, that took endurance.
On the flip side I decided for the first time in over 8 years to disconnect from work email and it was a much needed break with only a handful of items I had to attend to. Definitely something I’ll look to do more of in the future.
The morning workouts were enjoyable in nice weather. Being in Florida, I sheepishly monitored my surroundings for wildlife, later feeling vindicated by a sign.
Luckily I didn’t have to break into a sprint at any point. Not sure I could have gone much faster anyway as I nursed a cold for half the trip. Then again, I suppose the adrenaline could have injected a little Usain into my run.
In balance, despite the over 16,000 active calories burned I’m sure I gained more weigh than fitness during the trip. Can’t out-exercise a bad diet, specially when it includes churros.
More importantly, however, I made many amazing family memories I’m extremely grateful for. Certainly a trip to remember.
Now back to another reboot with WFPB foods while working my overflowing inbox and training for my first 50K.
Originally published at medium.com