I didn’t do a lot of running over the past 11-12 days or so since we were on a family vacation to Disney World. But I did do some and this post will recap what I did manage to get in. The post won’t be a vacation report – that will be posted over on our sister site at http://disney.biggoofyrunner.com when it is finished.
The vacation consisted of a drive from our home in Winnipeg to Minneapolis on Saturday Feb 1st – with stops around an 8-9 hour drive. We then overnighted in Minneapolis for 2 nights at a hotel across from the Mall of America before flying out to Orlando in the morning of Feb 3rd. We spent a week at the Beach Club at Disney World and then flew back to Minneapolis on the 10th. We stayed overnight in Minneapolis and then drove home on the 11th.
So the vacation had 2 full travel days in the van and 2 basically full flying days which cut into the available exercise time but I did manage to get some runs in.
On the day we left from Winnipeg to Minneapolis I hammered out a quick 1.28 mile run in 10 minutes before I had my morning shower and did the final load of the kids and baggage in the van. It felt good to get a bit of a leg stretch in before we headed out on the road. It gave me a good mindset to start the long drive for sure.
The next morning (Sunday Feb 2nd) I was able to hit the treadmill as the obligatory shopping trip to the Mall of America could not start until the mall opened later in the morning. The hotel had 3-4 treadmills and they were very good quality. Being a larger guy I tend to tax treadmills when I run but the one I used was very solid and I didn’t have any issues on it at all. I did 3.01 miles in 24 minutes with a 1% incline. It felt very good and worked out any kinks I had from the long drive and unfamiliar bed. My wife Heather got on the treadmill that morning as well which was a first for her using a hotel treadmill – so good for her for getting some mileage in!
My next run didn’t happen until the first morning at the Beach Club (Tuesday Feb 4th) – I was up quite a bit earlier than the kids and the wife and headed out around 7 am. This is a very good time to go for a run around the Beach / Yacht / Boardwalk areas – most of the other traffic are some other runners and a few conventioneers moving between hotels. It was quite foggy and hot and humid already at 7 am but it was just nice to be able to run outside. The jogging trail around the Beach / Yacht / Boardwalk areas is labelled at 0.8 miles but both my Android phone running app and my wife’s Nike watch indicated that it was actually longer than that. On this run I did 4 laps of the trail and got 3.28 miles. I did the run in 29 minutes – on this first one I was really just taking it easy and just enjoying being outside.
I also ran the next morning – Feb 5th – a bit cooler and less humidity but things were pretty wet since it had rained the night before but I found nothing slippery. I did the same 4 laps on that morning and got 3.42 miles in 29:34. I forgot my headphones for this run and didn’t want to go back to the room and wake the kids so headed out without them. The leaf blowers were out in full force but not a big deal – still a very peaceful run.
Did not run on the 6th but did on the 7th – Cooler again that morning and I remembered my headphones so I decided to push a bit. So I did the 4 laps to get a reading of 3.31 miles in 26:22. Felt good to push a little harder and really wanted to keep going but guilt got me and went and got the wife and kids moving so we could get out to the parks!
Had some laundry to dry on the 8th so I put the stuff in the dryers near the quiet pool at the Beach Club and had a bit more time so did 5 laps instead. I misread the timing on the dryer otherwise I would have done more. So the 5 laps gave me 4.21 miles in 35:24 – decent run that felt really good. In the end I needed to run the dryers a bit longer and was really tempted to put in some mileage but the hot tub was right there by the laundry area so I took a 20 minute soak in there while it rained and just enjoyed the peace.
Overall for a vacation that wasn’t specifically about running I think I did pretty good. If you include the quick run I did before we headed out I ran 6 days out of 11 for a total of 18.51 miles. Not huge numbers but still pretty decent…I will take it.
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