My Midwest Adventures

This week brought a three-city tour of the midwest for four different business meetings in three days:

Monday: D.C. to Madison
I had an 8:30 pm flight to Madison. After a 30 minute flight delay and a “discussion” with the rental car GPS, it was after 10:00 pm when I checked into my hotel. Still, I didn’t mind setting my alarm for o’dark-thirty so I could meet Steena (@ahappypace) for coffee!

Tuesday: Madison to Chicago
We opened up the Starbucks at 5:00 am, and I enjoyed Thanksgiving Blend, pumpkin bread, and conversation that went well beyond 140 characters! It was a nice way to kick off November, and easily was the highlight of my week.

My meeting didn’t start until 9:00 am, so I still had plenty of time for the hotel gym. It was small and crowded, but there was an open treadmill. I decided to do an incline workout:

0-5 min: walking warm-up @ 3.7 mph
5-10 min: running warm-up @ 5.7 mph
10-40 min: 5 min incline cycles of 0.5/1.5/2.0/2.5/3.0 (1 min each) @ 6.0 mph
40-45 min: 6.3 mph (0.5 incline)
45-50 min: walking cool-down @ 3.7 mph

This was tough and left me dripping with sweat. I skimped on stretching because there just wasn’t any room!

After my meeting in Madison, I drove 2+ hours towards Chicago for another meeting, and then drove another 1/2 hour hour-and-a-half to my hotel. Between rush hour and construction, it took much longer than it should have–the last mile literally took one hour. Luckily there was a nice restaurant that I could walk to that had a nice red zinfandel on their wine-by-the-glass list.

Wednesday: Chicago to Cincinnati
After a good night’s sleep,  I was ready to hit the gym @ 5:00.

I started on the elliptical and it nearly killed me–it seemed to gather momentum with every stride and get faster and faster. Even when I increased the resistance, I had a hard time keeping up with myself! Needless to say, I was out of breath after my 20 minute “warm up.”

After wiping down the elliptical, I moved on to the free weights. I was glad to see 10 lb, 15 lb and 20 lb weights, so I could do a full routine:

dead lifts, military presses, push-ups, plie squats, tricep dips, lunges, bicep curls, squats, lateral raises, crunches, skull crushers

I was meeting some colleagues at Starbucks, but needed coffee right away. I fixed myself some Via and enjoyed that while I got ready to pack up and hit the road again.

(I guess I can’t blame Siri for getting the weather forecast wrong–it was a gorgeous day!)

My morning meeting went well, and I had plenty of time to get to the airport–and get some Starbucks to make it through the rest of my day. My flight to Cincinnati was smooth–and an hour shorter than I expected.  I didn’t realize that I was crossing back into the eastern time zone!

Thursday: Cincinnati to D.C.
I woke up at 5:00 and got up before I remembered that I had decided that I could sleep until 6:00. D’oh! Once I’m up, I’m up, so I got dressed and headed for the hotel gym. I generally only do one “hard” treadmill workout a week, so my plan was to do a moderate, steady-state program.

0-5 min: walking warm-up @ 3.7 mph
5-10 min: running warm-up @ 5.7 mph
10-15 min: running warm-up @ 6.0 mph
15-25 min: running @ 6.3 mph (incline=1.0)
25-43 min: running @ 6.5 mph (incline=1.0)
43-45 min: running @ 6.7 mph (incline=1.0)
45-50 min: walking cool-down @ 3.7 mph

Unless I’m doing a hill/incline program, I usually keep the treadmill at 0.5 incline, but when I started running at 6.3 mph it felt easy, so I upped the incline to 1.0.  Since the Hot Chocolate 15K course will be hilly, I probably should keep this as my base incline (after my warm-up).

After 10 minutes at 6.3 mph, I upped the incline to 6.5 to combat treadmill boredom. I planned to hold that for 10 minutes , but felt fine after that, so I kept going. I did the last 2 minutes at 6.7 mph just for fun.

I took a cup of hot water from the lobby coffee station to start my day with Via again–I’m just so much happier when I start my day with strong, flavorful coffee. 🙂 

(Yes, it did rain in Cincinnati on Thursday)

My meeting in Cincinnati went well, and it was finally time to head home. Unfortunately, my meeting schedule and the flight schedules didn’t quite line up, so I had four five hours to kill at the airport. (Of course my late flight was delayed again.) My first stop after getting through security was the big Starbucks I’d seen when I landed. They had lots of tables but only two electrical outlets. Since those were occupied, I headed to my gate–I love that they have electrical outlets by the chairs in the gate areas now. I shelled out $7.00 for a T-Mobile hotspot, and was able to finish a big project before it was (finally) time to board.

What’s the longest time you’ve had to spend at an airport?