The best part about bringing your training shoes on vacation is that seeing a foreign city through the eyes of a training run is a perspective unlike anything you can fathom.
I don’t know what it is, but some of my most enduring vacation memories are when I laced up, usually early in morning, left the family in the hotel and went out to tour the local city on foot.
I’ve explored foggy monuments in London and rural Scotland.
I’ve run laps through the humid Florida swampland that is Disney World.
I’ve paused for selfies in front of the Louvre on a hot Parisian morning.
I’ve winked at Pixar Studios as I ran by the gates of the famed animation studio in urban Oakland.
I’ve run the various seaside waterfront trails of cities like Reykjavik, Victoria, Tokyo, Kihei and Nice.
Oh, of course, I’ve done travel racing too, and that’s a whole other experience worthy of each their own post, but vacation running—training runs, exploratory jogs, jaunts out into the strange places beyond the front door of a random hotel is raw adventure plunked into the middle of a normal vacation?
The world looks different through running eyes.
And a strange city on vacation is strangely unique as one runs by and through and across it in the mindset of a runner.
Pack your kit. Set your alarm. Warm up your GPS watch. Find a trail. And go out and holiday run. You will not regret it.
Definitions
- august
- In the month of August where I live summer peaks and the days are often relatively hot (in the high 20s or low 30s) muggy, smokey and dry. Rain is infrequent, but when it arrives it comes in the form of drenching downpours and epic thunderstorms. We begin our runs earlier in the day because the local marathon runs late in the month and our training distances are maxing.
- gps watch
- This is not an endorsement for any particular brand or model. I'm a Garmin guy myself, but owning a dedicated watch that tracks all your running metrics is pretty much standard fare as a modern day runner.
- october
- Fully into autumn, October is a month of shifting seasons, short days, long shadows, and gorgeous sunsets. The cobwebs are hung on the eaves in preparation for halloween, and here in Canada we're running off Thanksgiving dinner for a couple weeks after a proper good meal mid-month.
- september
- The days are noticeably shorter when we realize that September is upon us. The post-summer routine kicks in and people are back to regular work schedules and kids are back in school. It can still be warm, but the hottest days are behind us and most of the biggest races of the year are in the rear view. We savour September knowing winter is too soon to come.
