Lightweight Eats

As we headed out from Oregon, I had ambitious plans to work out 10 times a week, while driving 5+ hours a day. And for the first half of the trip, I was fairly successful.

Our first day on the road, we stopped at Cape Blanco, the westernmost point in the continental U.S. I got in a 60' trail run along cliffs and across the beach. It was beautiful, and exhilarating. And the next day, I ran through the giant redwoods.

The streak continued, with a few days of erging at lifting at my parents' house in Berkeley, and even a 90' row at the SoCal Scullers in Long Beach, CA. In Vegas, we rode our bikes down the strip, and in Arizona, I did stairs in our motel before tossing around suitcases as weightlifting.

My favorite day of the whole trip: we spent the better part of a day in the Grand Canyon. The altitude made it awfully cold, but we got in a 3-mile hike and I went on a 7-mile run along the rim trail. I could spend a week running in that place and still not see all that I wanted.

But after a week, we were only in Arizona, and we needed to spend more time driving each day. That's when things started to fall apart. Cold weather interfered with plans for a stop in Oklahoma City to row. I managed a few solid days of training here and there, including a 90' bike and a 90' run one day in Florida.

In the end, though, I got to Connecticut with some serious catch-up to do. So, instead of beating myself up about the past, I just got started. My first week back, I put in three workouts a day, capitalizing on easy equipment access and well-rested muscles. And the last 15 days in January, I averaged over 20km a day on the erg, plus some solid weight sessions.

What's the lesson in all of this? Do your best when the going it tough and do better when the going gets easy.

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