# Training While Traveling: 6 Tips for Maintaining your Tri Fitness on Holiday | Ep 502

An episode of [Oxygenaddict Triathlon Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/951501034), 14 Aug 2024, 17 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/ea99f7d8/podcast/play/90381762/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2024-7-13%2F384704939-44100-2-c1d5d51aeb0c6.mp3

This episode provides six essential tips for athletes to maintain their training regimen while on holiday, without disrupting family time. It emphasizes understanding the primary purpose of the holiday—whether it's a break or training for an upcoming event. Key points include modifying swimming workouts in hotel pools or open water, adjusting running schedules to accommodate heat, hiring or improvising with available bikes, managing nutrition and alcohol intake, and utilizing rest and recovery time effectively. The episode encourages a balanced approach to ensure athletes return from holiday in good shape. * * * * * * * * SPONSORS * * * * * * * * Like what you heard in this show? Join hundreds of other age group triathletes making the most of their limited training time, training with Team OxygenAddict! http://team.oxygenaddict.com - The most comprehensive triathlon coaching program for busy age groupers. Join the Team Oxygenaddict waiting list and be the first to find out when a space becomes available: https://team.oxygenaddict.com/waiting-list * * * * * * * * * * * * precisionfuelandhydration.com Precision Fuel & Hydration help athletes personalise their hydration and fuelling strategies for training and racing. Use the free Fuel & Hydration Planner to get a personalised race nutrition plan for your next event. And then book a free 20-minute video consultation with a member of the PF&H Athlete Support Team to refine your strategy. Listeners get 15% off their first order of fuel and electrolytes with Precision Fuel & Hydration. Simply use this link and the discount will be auto-applied at the checkout. * * * * * * * * * * * * Watch on youtube Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Podcasts

## Transcript

[0:02] Hello and welcome to the Oxygen Addict podcast.
[0:05] We're brought to you every week by our sponsors, Precision Fuel
[0:08] and hydration.com. You can personalise your
[0:11] fuelling and hydration strategy so you perform your best with
[0:14] 15% off your first order of electrolytes and carbohydrate
[0:18] fuel. The code Oxygen 24 at Precision
[0:21] Fuel and hydration.com. Welcome to the show, everybody.
[0:24] I'm your host, Coach Rob will be.
[0:26] And every week we've been you an episode of this podcast to help
[0:29] motivate and inspire you for your triathlon goals for this
[0:32] season. Listen, a couple of quick things
[0:35] you could do for us before we jump into today's episode.
[0:38] If you do like this episode, please consider following us on
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[0:51] more people by the algorithm on on the podcast players and on
[0:55] YouTube. So we'd really, really
[0:56] appreciate that. And secondly, if you're looking
[0:59] for help and advice with your triathlon training, please
[1:02] consider getting in touch with us.
[1:03] You can read all about what we offer at teamoxygenaddict.com
[1:07] and then you can e-mail us at help@oxygenaddict.com or there's
[1:11] a link in the show notes to book a call with me or one of the
[1:14] coaching team. We can discuss how we can best
[1:17] help you out with your triathlon goals for this season.
[1:21] OK, on this episode of the show, we're going to be talking about
[1:24] training while you're away on holiday and six tips to really
[1:28] help you manage to maintain your training while you're away on
[1:32] holiday. So first up, there's a caveat
[1:35] before we go into this episode, I want athletes to be really
[1:40] clear what the purpose of this episode is.
[1:43] I'm definitely not here to say to people you have to be
[1:47] training every day while you're away on holiday because I don't
[1:50] think that's the way that is going to lead to a harmonious
[1:52] home life with you at all. So the first thing to be clear
[1:55] on is the needs of the holiday, the needs of the family against
[2:00] the needs of training for an event.
[2:02] And in a lot of cases the need of going away on holiday with
[2:06] the family and not having training be a thing that
[2:09] interrupts a family holiday is incredibly important.
[2:13] And I think that's the first thing to be really clear on with
[2:16] your family as you go away, is how much of A part in the
[2:20] holiday is the training going to play.
[2:22] If you've got an Iron Man in four weeks time, I think
[2:26] understandably there's going to be a certain rigorous focus
[2:30] needed on doing some training every day.
[2:32] But if you don't have a an upcoming event, it can be much
[2:36] more worthwhile to your overall harmonious life to take a little
[2:39] bit of a break from the training and a step back and keep
[2:42] yourself ticking over with a few sessions while you're there if
[2:45] you want to. But to be really focused on what
[2:48] the main aim of the holiday is. So to be clear, the aim of this
[2:52] episode is for the athletes who are going away on a holiday and
[2:55] they've got an event coming up and they want to know how to
[2:58] make the best use of the time, perhaps limited resources that
[3:02] they've got while they're away on holiday.
[3:04] So hopefully that gives us a little bit of context.
[3:07] So first up, let's think about what you can do while you're
[3:11] away on holiday. For most of us listening or
[3:14] watching, we're triathletes. We want to swim, bike, run, do
[3:18] the necessary strength, conditioning to keep ourselves
[3:21] in shape. The big challenge for out of all
[3:24] of those sports, I think on most holidays is going to be access
[3:27] to a bike. It's going to be how do you keep
[3:30] bike sessions rolling along while you're on a holiday?
[3:33] And often you haven't flown and taken your bike with you.
[3:36] So we've got a couple of ideas how to help you out with that, a
[3:40] couple of ideas how to plan your swimming and you're running
[3:43] around this as well. So we'll start with swimming.
[3:47] First up, if you've got a hotel pool, it might be.
[3:52] In a perfect world you've gone to a hotel with a 25 or A50
[3:55] metre lap pool, and if so, easy you can get your sessions done
[3:59] in there. If not, if you've got a smaller
[4:03] hotel pool, there are some things that you can still do to
[4:07] make use of that pool while you're away on a holiday.
[4:10] It might involve getting up early so the pool's empty or
[4:13] doing it late when the pool's empty.
[4:15] But shorter pools, 15/18/20 metre pools can still be really
[4:19] effective at training if you apply yourself to doing drills
[4:22] in them. Now, you're very unlikely to be
[4:24] able to do meaningful lap swimming in a short pool like a
[4:27] 15 metre pool, but you definitely can apply the drills
[4:31] that you need to do to improve your swimming in the lap pool in
[4:35] the hotel, in the 1518 metre pool in the hotel and come back
[4:40] from your holiday as a better swimmer.
[4:42] So that's the first thing, accept that while it may not be
[4:46] perfect in terms of being able to do your proper swim workouts,
[4:50] it will definitely have a more positive effect if you get in
[4:53] the water every day than if you don't get in the water every
[4:56] day. So just doing the drills, if
[4:58] that's your only access to a pool, that can be much, much
[5:02] better than nothing. And again, have a clear idea of
[5:05] the drills you want to be doing before you go away.
[5:07] For most athletes, they know the one or two drills that are
[5:10] probably going to help move them through any kind of swim plateau
[5:13] that they're in. Just apply yourself to doing
[5:15] that. Do the drill one way down the
[5:17] pool, swim yourself back down the other way.
[5:20] That's a great way to spend 15 or 20 minutes early in the
[5:23] morning pre breakfast before everyone's got themselves up.
[5:28] If you have access to swimming in the sea or in the lake while
[5:32] you're away, well, first thing is make sure you're going to be
[5:35] safe. If you're going to be swimming
[5:36] alone, you've got to at the very least let people know where
[5:39] you're going for safety and also give yourself a tow float to
[5:42] swim with. So you've got a little bit of
[5:44] flotation if you need it, but also there's a, you know,
[5:47] there's a sign that you're swimming there if people are in
[5:50] the open water in, in boats or whatever.
[5:52] So have your inflatable tow float with you.
[5:55] And my advice is going to be to try and swim if you're, if
[5:58] you're swimming in a place that hasn't got any lifeguard cover
[6:01] and, and you're just on your own, be as safe as you possibly
[6:04] can, even if that means swimming up and down the shore, only 10
[6:08] metres out from the water's edge and it's in water you can stand
[6:11] up in, you can still get a meaningful swim done there.
[6:14] You don't have to swim out all the way into the sea.
[6:17] You can still swim backwards and forwards across the shore.
[6:19] That's really going to be helpful to you.
[6:22] And in terms of what you can actually do in an open water, a
[6:25] common question is can I do a structured swim session in open
[6:29] water? It's really difficult when there
[6:31] aren't, you know, a start and a finish of the lane marked out
[6:34] for you. So one tip I've got for you is
[6:36] if you've got a digital watch and it's got a stopwatch or a
[6:39] timer function on, set it to beep after 2 minutes and you'll
[6:44] hear that as you're swimming along and you can simply swim
[6:47] for two minutes down the shore in One Direction, listen for the
[6:50] beep, take a three to five second break and swim back
[6:54] again. That'll give you a, you know, a
[6:56] roughly for most people in the region of in the region of 100
[7:01] metres of swimming. You can then structure your
[7:03] swims with that. If you're a slower or a faster
[7:06] swimmer than that. Choose the appropriate time
[7:08] interval by swimming backwards and forwards along the shore.
[7:12] You can get a meaningful swim workout done if it's safe.
[7:15] If you want to do continuous outdoor swims, then it's the
[7:19] perfect place to do it as long as you can be sure that you've
[7:22] got the safety cover in place, bearing in mind that there's
[7:26] there's not going to be lifeguards looking out for you
[7:28] here. So the safety first angle has to
[7:30] be the first consideration. But for sure, swimming backwards
[7:34] and forwards 100 yards, even if you're not very far out to sea,
[7:38] can be really, really beneficial.
[7:40] And you'll get all of the benefits of practising the open
[7:44] water swims that we've talked about in previous episodes.
[7:46] Learning to breathe bilaterally, learning to deal with sharp,
[7:49] learning to swim in waves even possibly that can be a big
[7:53] benefit from the open water swims.
[7:55] So Next up tip #2 from running while you're away.
[8:01] If you've gone abroad and, and I'm addressing our British
[8:05] English audience, if you've gone to Europe, if you've gone
[8:07] somewhere where it's really, really hot, the heat is going to
[8:11] be the biggest issue with your running.
[8:14] And I don't think that you need to necessarily decide you're
[8:18] going to try and do a full running schedule while you're
[8:21] away. Firstly, the time it's going to
[8:24] take to do really long runs, but secondly, being heat acclimated
[8:27] to run in, in the, you know, if you've got to grease and it's
[8:30] 40°C, it's really hard to run for the duration of your long
[8:35] run normally. So if you can get in three runs
[8:39] while you're away, even if they're only 20 minutes long,
[8:42] that will go a long way to maintaining your run fitness and
[8:45] your durability while you're away.
[8:47] I'd give you the tip of getting up early to do it before the
[8:50] heat of the day, taking water and sufficient hydration with
[8:54] you so you can stay cool while you're out there and being as
[8:57] safe again as you possibly can be.
[8:59] But the key principle holds true here.
[9:02] If you can get out for those three runs in a week of even 20
[9:05] minutes, even if you have to throw some walk breaks in
[9:08] because it's really hot, that's going to maintain your run
[9:11] fitness really nicely for the period that you're away.
[9:14] Now, in an ideal world, would I have an athlete complete their
[9:18] normal run schedule while they're away?
[9:21] Absolutely I would. That's going to be the gold
[9:23] standard. But if you haven't got the
[9:26] option because of family commitments, or if you haven't
[9:29] got the option because it's just so hot you can't do it, then
[9:32] allowing yourself to do that, even if it's just 20 minutes,
[9:36] that's a lot better than not doing any of the runs at all
[9:40] while you're away. And ideally, you'll spread those
[9:42] three runs out every other day so your body gets used to and
[9:47] keeps up with the process of running every other day.
[9:50] That's a really great way to go for athletes who don't have
[9:53] access to a bike. A common question is, well,
[9:56] should I run more? Should I run more frequently?
[9:59] My answer to that is always it depends.
[10:01] It depends how well adjusted to running you are.
[10:04] It depends on your body. The one thing we want to avoid
[10:07] more than anything is the danger, the risk of picking up a
[10:12] niggle from running much more frequently than you're used to.
[10:15] So if you don't have access to a bike at all, I would say at the
[10:20] very minimum try to do those three runs.
[10:23] And then if you're confident in your running, you can maybe run
[10:26] two days back-to-back, have a day off, run two days
[10:29] back-to-back, have a day off, run again, and that's five runs
[10:33] done during the week. But again, I'd go for frequency
[10:36] over duration in those situations.
[10:41] For athletes who are away and they don't have a bike with them
[10:44] and don't have access to a bike, this can be the real biggest
[10:48] challenge of trying to maintain your training while you're away.
[10:51] So if you're not travelling and taking a bike with you, your
[10:54] options are going to be can you find a road bike to hire when
[10:58] you're out there? That's that's the the gold
[11:00] standard. If you can hire a bike, just
[11:02] take your own pedals and shoes and helmet with you, then that's
[11:05] really easy. You rent a bike at the start of
[11:07] the week, bring it to your room, you sneak out in the mornings
[11:10] and you get a couple of hour long sessions done while you're
[11:12] there. Fantastic.
[11:15] The next thing I would say to you, and I've used this myself
[11:17] in the past, we went to a resort years ago that didn't have real
[11:21] Rd bikes and it didn't even really have real mountain bikes,
[11:24] but they had fun mountain bikes for hire.
[11:27] You could hire them by the hour. So just a couple of times during
[11:30] the week while I was away, I went and hired one of these
[11:33] cheap mountain bikes for an hour, rode out of the hotel.
[11:37] There was a hilly Rd just round the corner and it was perfect
[11:41] for doing relatively hard seated bike intervals up this hill for
[11:45] a few minutes at a time and I could go out, I could warm up, I
[11:49] could do 10 intervals of a couple of minutes with a gentle
[11:52] rollback recovery. Go back to the hotel.
[11:55] I was back within 45 minutes. But I came back from the holiday
[11:59] feeling as though I hadn't missed any bike training.
[12:02] And it goes back to the principle that we said earlier
[12:04] on, it takes a lot less training while you're away to maintain
[12:07] the fitness you've already got than it does to build it.
[12:12] But it doesn't take much to maintain it compared to the you
[12:15] who doesn't do anything at all. So being able to get out on even
[12:18] a cheap mountain bike for an hour even once while you're away
[12:22] is much better than not getting anything done at all.
[12:26] Now, tip #5 is going to be a slightly contentious one.
[12:31] It's around. It's around your nutrition, it's
[12:34] around your diet and it's around alcohol.
[12:37] When you're on holiday, again, it's going to come down to what
[12:40] the focus of your week is. Everybody needs a break and
[12:43] needs a holiday, but it's been our experience that athletes who
[12:47] go away throw caution to the wind, dive into the buffet as
[12:51] hard as they can, make use of the the All Access inclusive
[12:57] beer and wine can put a lot of weight on in a week while
[13:00] they're away. So if you need to go away and
[13:03] blow off steam and have a total break, absolutely fine.
[13:07] We've got no problem with that, but if you're away on holiday
[13:10] and you've got an event coming up, this is where I would say
[13:14] that you need to be disciplined. All hotels with the kind of
[13:18] buffet dinners tend to have access to loads of really good
[13:22] food, loads of really good salads, as well as having access
[13:26] to all the puddings and all the ice cream and all the alcohol
[13:29] you can eat and drink as well. So it's up to you to make good
[13:32] choices. If you can treat this as all my
[13:36] meals are catered for this week and I'm going to try and get the
[13:39] best nutrition and I can while I'm away, then you're going to
[13:42] come back in even better shape than you went.
[13:44] If you throw caution to the wind and you hit the buffet and you
[13:47] have the puddings every single day, every single meal, well,
[13:50] it's going to be no surprise when you come back and you've
[13:52] put a few pounds on. Now I'm not saying that that's
[13:55] good or bad. That's up to each individual
[13:58] athlete to decide for themselves.
[14:00] But if your focus is on performance in four weeks time,
[14:03] it's going to be up to you to be disciplined around these choices
[14:06] you need to make. And finally, tip number six is I
[14:11] think the most important thing that you can do for yourself
[14:14] while you're away on holiday. The rest and the recovery that
[14:17] you get while you're away can be so, so important to being in
[14:22] great shape when you come back. If you can get some extra sleep
[14:25] during the nights, that's like a free performance and hunting
[14:28] drug. If you can manage to have a 20
[14:31] minute power nap in the afternoon on a sun lounger while
[14:33] everyone else is out playing, that can be a performance
[14:36] enhancing drug. Spending a little bit of time
[14:39] focusing on relaxing while you're there can be the most
[14:43] important thing that you do. So while it's important that you
[14:46] have fun and it's important that you keep your training done,
[14:49] make sure you focus on the recovery and the extra sleep you
[14:53] can get while you're there as well, and you'll come back in
[14:56] even better shape than you went away.
[14:59] So if you're way off on holiday, I hope you have a fantastic
[15:02] time. I hope you apply the appropriate
[15:05] amount of focus to your training or not as suits your particular
[15:09] situation. And I hope this episode has been
[15:12] helpful to you. OK, then that brings us to the
[15:16] end of this week's episode. So here are some discount codes
[15:19] and deals for you over at Precision Fuel and
[15:22] hydration.com. Use the code Oxygen 24 for 15%
[15:25] off your first electrolyte order.
[15:27] And over at teamoxygenaddict.com I think we've got the most
[15:31] comprehensive triathlon coaching programme for busy age groupers.
[15:35] If you've enjoyed what you've heard today and the advice has
[15:37] helped you out, well, great stuff.
[15:39] I hope that's helped put some of your fears at rest.
[15:41] And I know from some of the calls we've had, it's helping
[15:44] raise the right questions in the minds of people as to whether
[15:49] their current coaching relationship is working for
[15:51] them. If you're looking for a change
[15:53] or if you're looking for high quality, proven coaching for
[15:55] Iron Man or 70.3 Triathlon this year, you can just check out the
[15:59] details of our coaching packages on our website at
[16:02] teamoxygenaddict.com. And then if you're interested,
[16:06] there's a link in the show notes below.
[16:07] You can join our waiting list and you'll be notified if a slot
[16:11] becomes available. And at that point you'll have a
[16:13] chance to book a call with us and see if you'd be a good fit
[16:16] for joining the team. So although we don't have slots
[16:19] available at the moment, we'll make those call appointments
[16:22] available to people as and when. We do have athletes who end
[16:26] their coaching packages during the season if and when that
[16:29] happens. So remember, there's links in
[16:30] the show notes so you don't have to remember them until next
[16:34] week. Have a great safe training and
[16:35] racing week. I'm coach Rob Wilby and you've
[16:38] been listening to the Oxygen Addict podcast.
[16:40] See you.

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