Fabulous Outdoor Training Day

I travel a lot with work.  Often times when people who don't travel for work hear this they say things like "Oh! That must be exciting!" and "do you get to go to great restaurants a lot?", "you must get to sightsee a lot!" and all sorts of other exciting and glamours ideas people have about travel.  I have those ideas too...  but they are centered around vacations.  When I travel for work I see an airport, some form of transport from airport to hotel (this is the only sightseeing I do) and then I see the hotel and the venue.  Often the hotel and the venue are attached to each other which means that quite often when I go on a trip the only time I see the outdoors is when I go to and from the airport.  Twenty hour days are not unheard of and 12-18 hour days are extremely common.  When we travel we work our asses off in my industry from the moment we wake up till when we go to sleep.  When we have a few rare bits of time off in the evening we often spend them in search of a great meal close to the hotel or more often than not sitting in our hotel room staring at a laptop working on paperwork for the next show.  That is life on the road.  There are of course some perks.  Frequent flyer miles and hotel points mean my hotel and airfare on vacations or travelling to races are often free which is great.  It means I can live anywhere in the US close to an airport.  I can cut my schedule down to working only 12 shows a year, maybe even less than that and still pay all my bills as we get paid a premium to be away from our friends and family.  However the lifestyle is a tiring one and it gets old...   but thats not what this post is about.  Every now and then you end up on a show with one of those easy dream schedules that you usually only read about on your buddies facebook page and you write stuff like "you bastard!  howcome I never get a gig like that!".  Well...    right now I'm on a gig like that.  And damnit I deserve it!

I'm currently at the Terranea Resort just south of LA in California working on a large corporate event.  The initial load in schedule was a challenge but now that part is behind us my schedule has gotten to be pretty easy.  I don't think there are any days much longer than 8 hours left on my schedule in the time remaining here and I haven't worked many days longer than that since we finished setup which is awesome.  Some of my days are split with a 4 hour morning work session and a 4 hour evening session or whatever... but thats super easy.  So the point is I'm staying at this super swank resort and actually have bits of time off to enjoy it!  Granted I have a fair amount of paperwork to do but those projects are stalled while I wait for other people to finish bits of them so today I decided to enjoy myself.....

I didn't have to be at work today till 4pm so I decided I would sleep in and get in a nice big brick session today on property.  I had no idea it was all going to be outdoors and amazing!  Now my body is still on east coast time so sleeping in meant getting up at 7am.  I spent a delightfull hour just eating breakfast, drinking coffee, and texting / emailing the girl and then decided it was time to get my ass in the pool.  So I loaded up with all the gear I'd need to swim/bike/run, threw on some tri shorts and a tech shirt and headed off to the pool / fitness center to get started.

When I first saw the pool I was stunned.  Its right at the top of a cliff overlooking the pacific ocean and it was gorgeous!  Better than that I had the whole damn thing to myself!

As you can see the view is amazing.  What a treat to be swimming in October in an outdoor lap pool!  And to make it even better its a salt water pool which I really like.  Only minor annoyance is the cutesy curved lap lines on the bottom of the pool but really...   who can complain about that!  So I proceeded to get my swimming in.  I tried to forget about the awful swim session a week prior that had me out of the pool after logging barely 500 yards.  This session was much, much better.  I settled into a groove quickly and put in 20x50's on 20 seconds rest.  That went well and then I moved onto 100's and did 5 of those followed by one 500 yard set for a total of 2000 yards.  That took me about 45 minutes and then I got out of the pool and dried off and headed into the fitness center to get on a stationary bike.

I get on the bike inside the gym and start pedalling and then I look out the window and see this brick patio outside with six spin bikes on it sitting in the sun.  So I stopped pedalling grabbed all my gak and headed out there!  WOW!  Sweet!  A spin bike, an ocean breeze, and a view of the pacific ocean!  Seriously?  AWESOME!

So I put in a nice steady hour of spinning on the bike and then locked up my gak and headed out for a five mile run.

The run went really well and the progressive swim to bike warmup had my hamstring feeling really good which was awesome.  There is a large network of gravel trails that runs up and down the coast so I just headed north and followed the trail that runs atop the cliffs.  What a beautifull run!  Gorgeous mostly empty trails, 70 degrees and sunny.  Just absolutely fabulous.  I loved it!  My hamstring felt good, my toe felt a little weak but not bad and I got through the run feeling much much better than I did the one a couple of days ago.  I definitely felt good enough to try for the 14 miler on Sunday.

So a spectacular day of outdoor training was had today.  And after that I went back to my villa and ate lots of yummy bagels, cheese, yogurt, almonds, and granola for a super nutritious and yummy protein filled lunch.  Perfect!  And after a super long shower which included ten minutes of stretching and yoga under the hot water I dried off, spent an hour on the phone with the girl, did some work, and then mozied on over to work from 4pm-10pm which is where I am now.  Work this evening consists of babysitting a dimmer rack again for six hours.  Super easy.  I keep asking the LD to break something so I'll have something to fix.  He's not cooperating yet though. 

A fantastic day today...  it really did wonders for my mood to have such a strong and successful training day in the outdoors.  Usually travelling and training means nasty beige dungeon gyms deep in the hotel with lousy indoor chlorine filled 20 yard pools.  So a full 25 yard real lap pool with that view, an outdoor spin bike, and a trail run along the ocean...  well damn.  That just never happens!  And the luxury of a morning off to take my time and enjoy it!  now were talking near impossible!  But today it all lined up and I loved it!  Good for the soul.  Plus I'm getting excited at the thought of going home in five days.  Love it!