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My husband and I are taking our kids to Kauai for the next 2 weeks. This falls in the middle of my training - my first race is about 10 weeks away. I've been running, biking and swimming each twice a week. While on vacation, I will not be able to bike, but I'll have plenty of time to swim and run.
I'm also noticing that my core strength is lacking and that I would probably benefit from being stronger all over.
How do you approach vacations while in training?
I've only done one sprint, so I can't really comment as to how to keep up the intensity/duration of your training while away from home, but I do have this for core exercises:
When I'm traveling for any reason, especially for more than a weekend, I have a stack of Pilates and PT exercises on index cards that I will work through. I select what I want to do on a given day depending on how much time I have and whether I have an appropriate space in which to do the exercises. I sometimes have a few Therabands from my PT that I will bring along, if there are specific things I want to work on.
I think what you do while on vacation depends on your goals. If it were me, I wouldn't worry about not being on the bike. That's the beauty of cross-training. You'll get cardio and strength benefits from whatever you choose to do while on vacation, and if your race is 10 weeks away, I imagine you'll have plenty of time to re-establish your regular routine and do a few brick workouts.
Two weeks on Kuai? I'm jealous.
I can only say that I have tried VERY hard to train while on vacation, but not succeeded, finally decided that SUCH IS LIFE and if I am slower in a race, well, that was because i was living...
Maybe concentrate on open water swimming, reading the currents, lifting your head out to check where you are, etc, and most of all, ENJOY!
I have a two week vacation planned that's taking place eight weeks before my next tri and I've been worried about the same thing. And this is defintely NOT an active vacation--driving tour of Ireland followed by visiting family in Oslo. I know myself well enough to know two contradictory things a) if I take two weeks off from training, I'll lose a lot of what I gained before the vacation and b)I'm never inclined to exercise when I'm out of my normal routine.
And to complicate things, the baggage weight limits on one leg of our flights is only 33 pounds, so I can't pack much.
I'm planning to bring my running shoes and will force myself to go for a short run at least five times during the two weeks. I *think* that should be enough to maintain my level of fitness, which is all I really care about. I can do that with just one running outfit, too, and then wash it by hand and air dry it. I love the idea of bringing pilates exercises written out on index cards--that would add almost nothing to my baggage and could be something I could do early in the morning before setting out each day. I don't know if it'll actually happen (sleeping in being so much more appealing!) but I know that without them I wouldn't do it, so I'll add those to my packing list.
If it were further out from the race date, I probably would just blow it off and work extra hard when I get back, but I lost so much ground over my Christmas break and it took me 6 or 8 weeks to get back up to that level. I don't want that to happen again.
Sarah