Life On The Road

Since I worked late on Monday night, I got to sleep in a bit yesterday.  After a few days, these awkward schedules can really get to you, but it was cool to be able to workout in the morning and not have it be at the crack of dawn.

I went down to the hotel gym – which was nothing special – for my workout, which started with this leg workout and ended with a fifteen minute run on the treadmill. 

Even though I’ve been doing these same workouts for a while now, I’ve been enjoying them again since my schedule hasn’t been quite as structured lately.  I switch up the weights, the rest periods, and alternate between doing single sets and mini circuits, so it keeps things interesting. 

I’ve also been learning a lot as part of my NASM studying, and I’m excited to create some new workouts incorporating supersets.  Phase two of the NASM training model uses supersets with one traditional strength exercise and one exercise that challenges the stabilization systems of the body back to back – like a bench press and a Swiss ball push up.  It stresses how important it is to strengthen your balance mechanisms, and it’s definitely something that I don’t focus on enough.  But more on that later!

After a few hours of work in the morning, I had to drive up to Massachusetts and check into my second hotel of the week.  This one is a lot older and the workout room is even less appealing than the last, but I guess you can’t win them all!  (Does anyone else put their bags down and immediately go check out the gym/pool/lobby/restaurants when you check into a hotel, or is that just me? I always go through the guest information book from cover to cover too, just so I don’t miss something cool they might be offering.)

Since I was working another night shift, I tried hard to take a little nap after I checked in, but it didn’t happen.  I’m just not good at taking naps, I guess – oh well. 

There’s really nothing around the hotel, so for dinner, I headed down to the attached restaurant next door.  There was a bar + grill section and a fancy sit down section, but I stayed on the more casual side.  Have you ever eaten alone in a restaurant?  Yeah, it was kind of awkward… but you just have to own it. 

I ordered the Mediterranean chicken salad with grilled marinated chicken, baby spinach, and feta cheese (no olives and I picked out the onions), plus an herby vinaigrette dressing. 

Plus I also tried the Tuscan Bruschetta, and it was very tasty.  I barely ate half of either plate, but at least it might make a good lunch for today!

It was another long night on the overnight shift, but today’s hours are going to be pretty “normal” even though I’m starting a little later.  They’re forecasting for a bit of snow, and even though I’m hoping it doesn’t impact my traveling, I’m definitely looking forward to it!

Questions:

What’s the first thing you do when you get to a hotel?

Is your work schedule always the same or does it vary?