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travel and training
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I just started a new job which requires me to travel a bit more than I used to. I am trying to figure out training while travelling but some days it is just not possible. Late night client dinners followed by early morning meetings.

My question, is there anything wrong with cramming my weeks training into 3-4 days when I am home? For example I've been gone tues - thurs this week and was only able to get one run in. So Friday, Sat, Sun I was planning on doing two-a-days or three-a-days for those three days to get my key workouts in.

Any problems with this? Is this better or worse than just skipping workouts?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!
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Re: travel and training [connan23] [ In reply to ]
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setting aside training, from just a basic "life" perspective drinking and eating out three nights a week with no exercise is probably not a good long term lifestyle. I think you need to relook at your travel days and find a way to get a 30min run in every morning, at lunch, what have you.

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Re: travel and training [ericMPro] [ In reply to ]
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I totally agree. And it is not my first choice as far as lifestyle. One thing to note this would not be a weekly thing. Maybe once or a month, twice max...
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Re: travel and training [connan23] [ In reply to ]
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In my industry, the dinners are optional. If it's a week trip, I may attend one dinner with a group out of 5 days. I will not eat together every night with everyone. Usually I reserve that dinner as one with the company we are doing the work with (buying their equipment).

Other days, as a cyclist, I'll fit in what I can. I'll go run a 10k run, cycle on the crappy recumbent in the gym, swim in the pool at hotel.

If your industry has the dinners as less "optional" due to your role, you may need to re-assess overall.
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Re: travel and training [connan23] [ In reply to ]
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connan23 wrote:

My question, is there anything wrong with cramming my weeks training into 3-4 days when I am home? For example I've been gone tues - thurs this week and was only able to get one run in. So Friday, Sat, Sun I was planning on doing two-a-days or three-a-days for those three days to get my key workouts in.

Any problems with this? Is this better or worse than just skipping workouts?

It probably depends a bit on the nature of the workouts. But, in general cramming "key workouts" into 2 or 3-a-day suffer-fests probably isn't the best plan. Cramming things together typically just begins compromising the workouts farther downstream.

My general approach to the travel/client dinners is that having a glass of wine on the table doesn't mean you have to drink it, or drink 3-4. Nursing a single glass, and perhaps part of second glass generally goes unnoticed---and doesn't impact my ability to get up early and go for a quick run.

Even a fast 5k has solid training value, or a 10k with some mile-repeats.

If its just (mostly) once a month, then I think you'd be better off, just to call it an extra recovery day..as part of a "down/plateau week". Then just pick up normally when you get home. Maybe do something the day before you leave that requires some extra recovery. Then squeeze in a run or two (30-45m each) while your gone...tempo-pace if you can. Recover on your return day, and then resume normal training.

If it were me, I'd be sure I swam the day before I left, and the day after I returned. That first swim after coming home always sucks; so I keep it short, just enough to get rebalanced. Another swim the very next day always seems to go well. so, I'd plan 2 swim days in a row after return.
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Re: travel and training [connan23] [ In reply to ]
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I travel almost every week for work, at first I tried to cram as much as I could into the weekends, but that just led to injury and not many quality miles.

As others have suggested I would recommend being realistic about your expectations going into the week- if you are trying to log some serious miles, decline the company dinners. A great excuse is "I have a big project that I need to get out tonight...too busy to waste my evening at a restaurant" That being said, if part of your job is schmoozing clients, you might not be able to avoid the dinners. In these cases I have adopted the strategy of allowing myself a 12 hour buffer to try to get my workouts back on track. ie: if I had a run scheduled for wednesday night but I end up going out to dinner, I would push it to thursday morning, if I can't get it done thursday morning, just cut your losses and don't try to cram it in. Consequently I usually reserve my thursday or friday as an off day since I am traveling and trying to cram a super early or super late workout in can often just leave me trashed for the rest of the weekend.

FWIW I almost never schedule two-a-days while traveling, something inevitably comes up and makes it impossible to keep to that plan.


If you are only traveling once a month I would just plan that week to be your recovery week so it lessens the impact of a cancelled workout.
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Re: travel and training [connan23] [ In reply to ]
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I traveled a lot for work from my mid-20s through late 30s and took the approach of cramming in my training in the 2-3 days I was home, with the exception of strength work and running, which I did as much of as possible on the road. Still, 80% or more of my training was Friday - Sunday most weeks. It worked fine for me to be able to finish races up to and including the IM distance, but I don't think I raced anywhere near my potential and the recovery from the races was probably a lot worse then it would have been had my schedule not been so inconsistent.
Now that I'm in my mid-40s, I can't imagine that my body could handle 3 consecutive, long days of training but I haven't had to find out because I switched careers 4 years ago and no longer travel much for work.
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