Last week was the fourth time I’ve traveled in 2016, and it was the first time I was able to successfully work out. I’ve been foiled by a broken treadmill with no backup plan (UP Michigan), mostly laziness (Florida), and illness (Calgary).

While in Edmonton last week, I was actually very successful at fitting in workouts. Gold stars for me!

I benefited from a couple of things:
1. My company doesn’t require me to work on long travel days, so I can choose my own schedule.
2. I was able to check a bag which allowed me to bring a lot more stuff along and also gave me more freedom to move around the airport.
3. I traveled to a very walkable city, and had amazing weather the entire visit.

Here’s how I stayed active while in Edmonton:

Tuesday: Travel day
I didn’t leave Duluth until 3 PM, so I was able to sleep in and shake off the crummy, tired feeling I’d had for the past week. I had a long layover in Minneapolis, of my own design. I hate being cooped up in planes (I am also not fond of being cooped up in airports, but it’s better than a plane), so I like to have a little break between flights. I also don’t want to risk a delay; I was on the last flight to Edmonton for the night, so if I’d had a delay out of Duluth on a later flight, I’d have been hosed. This is largely irrelevant, but the point is I had a lot of time in the airport. So I walked around a lot. Shopped a little bit, got a bite to eat, and then just wandered. Sat and worked for awhile, wandered again. Customs at the Edmonton airport is also comically far from the gate where we landed; I guess they figured we fat Americans needed a little extra workout. I booked it down the corridors to try to beat a few of my fellow travelers to the customs line, only to discover it wasn’t that big of a line (unlike my trip to Calgary). I reached 10,000 steps without fitting in a workout, for the first time since getting my tracker.

Wednesday: Work day
I got a lot of steps in 1. finding my workplace 2. dealing with my credit card (long story) 3. getting lunch and 4. heading to dinner with my colleagues. I think again I was at 10,000 steps without working out. I stuffed my face at dinner, but I made it back to the hotel with plenty of time to let food settle before getting on the treadmill. I ran 5 miles in the relatively warm hotel gym, and then did some push-ups after I got back to my room. I was a little wound-up when I tried to go to sleep, but no big deal.

Thursday: Team building event
More walking: to work, to another building, to lunch, back to the hotel for a minute after lunch. We had a team building event in the afternoon at a local park, and were allowed to wear our comfortable clothes to the morning meeting. I probably stretched this a bit by wearing a buff (as a headband), a t-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, but hey, I was ready for the afternoon. I ran over to the park after leaving the hotel, which was supposed to be about 2.5 km (when in Rome…), but ended up being a 5k, since I made some wrong turns. Hooray. I was late for the kickball game. After kickball, I played some 3 on 3 soccer, which about killed me, and then probably racked up a bunch of “steps” playing ping pong. I walked back to the hotel with some coworkers and ended up running up a bunch of steps to… I’m not sure what. Another woman and I decided to do it rather than take a very slow escalator in the Shaw Conference Center. Again, it nearly killed me. I ran 3 miles on the treadmill once back at the hotel, although it was an unpleasant run thanks to the 10-12 teenagers who decided to use the hotel gym as their personal hangout.

Friday: Travel day
Got up at 4:30 am, did a little bit of airport walking during my layover in Minneapolis, sat on the plane in the Duluth airport for an hour before disembarking, thanks to a thunderstorm, and decided to call it a rest day.

Overall, I think I did pretty well at working out while traveling. I could have gotten a workout on Tuesday if I’d chosen to get on an earlier flight, but the walking I did was plenty. It was a good time for a cutback week as it was. Next time I go to Edmonton, I need to do some more running along the river; it is gorgeous.