Traveling with a 3-year-old son creates unique complications. I had tons of downtime in the hotel at afternoon naptime and after he was in bed at 8:00 p.m., but I was confined to the hotel room because there’s nobody else to watch him. Add to this the fact that Philadelphia rolled out the red carpet with really awful weather (54 degrees and horizontal rain!), I was pretty much stuck.
By Wednesday, I was so desperate for exercise — any exercise at all — that I defaulted to King of Prussia mall. For those unfamiliar, King of Prussia comes in two parts: a normal-sized mall, and it’s twice-as-large next door neighbor. I showed up with the boy, rented a stroller, and proceeded to loop around the larger mall three times. Then we ditched the stroller, crossed to the smaller side, and I carried the boy around while I shopped.
On Thursday morning, I had the good fortune to be able to leave him with my father for an hour and a half while I ran, showered, packed and got ready for our return flight. It was an almost exclusively off-road workout, running on soccer fields near my father’s house.
Friday night was kickboxing. We started things off with 300 jumping jacks, 200 lunges and about 100 push-ups in various arm and leg positions. Then we moved on to sparring with a partner and defending against an attacker with a gun. A word of caution to anyone who intends to mug me at the ATM: don’t. I’ve got skills now.
Today we walked 4.32 miles roundtrip to and around the farmer’s market. We usually walk at a pretty good pace, one that isn’t reflected on my Nike+ log, because I forgot to turn off the sensor while I was milling around and buying my produce.
I should get up early and run tomorrow morning, but the challenge is the “getting up” portion of that statement. I still feel like I’m about a week behind on sleep, and I can’t bring myself to set an alarm.
200 lunges? What’s that like? I’ve done, at best, 3 sets of 10 on each leg with weights in my hand. Have read about athletes doing walking lunges for insane distances like half a mile or more.
BTW: If you see me at an ATM, let someone go between us (so I know you’ve got my back).
Imagine if you can: straight-down squat, rise and lunge diagonally to your left. Return to center and straight-down squat, then rise and lunge diagonally to your right. Return to center. Repeat until you collapse in a heap on the ground.
What’s worse is that this effort comes immediately on the heels of the 300 jacks, and was followed by 20 pushups in a wide X position. And that’s just the warm-up!
Gives new meaning to being out on Friday night.