Greetings from paradise.
I’m in the Outer Banks for the fifth Memorial Day in the row. On maybe the first or second time here, someone said we should come here every Memorial Day, even when everyone’s married and with kids. We haven’t gotten to the bringing kids phase yet (although one couple has dropped out due to child), but there are quite a few engaged or married couples here now, so I think it’s safe to say we’ll be coming here for a long, long time.
Thursday night, I drove down to DC from NY and got in at 11:30PM, cat-napped and left around 3:30AM to get to the beach. It sucked, but we were on the beach by 10am, so I couldn’t really complain.
Yesterday mostly consisted of relaxing, but by 5pm, everyone was drinking, and I knew I wanted to get a run in.
It sucked. I was exhausted and dehydrated from laying on the beach all day, and my legs felt like lead. And it was hot. I had planned to only run three miles, but by 2.25, I was done. I tried to get myself to keep going, but by 2.5, there was no trick or mantra in the world to keep me going, and I ended up walking the last half a mile. I haven’t done that on a short run in forever, but I had absolutely nothing left in me.
This morning, my friend Sarah and I rented bikes from Just for the Beach. Sarah has a road bike and rides centuries, and is pretty hardcore. I’m not that hardcore a biker, but I do usually ride for a workout, not just to ride.
So when we got to the rental shop and realized they only had cruisers, we were a little disappointed.
But, in going with the “whatever, we’re at the beach” attitude, we hopped on and rode away.
We rode down through Corolla and Duck and rode about an hour each way. I didn’t have my Garmin, so I don’t know how far we rode, but we broke a sweat and had fun, and got more exercise than we would have had we not gone, so there’s that. It was certainly less far than the 50 miles we rode last year!
It’s nice to have other friends on vacation who are in to fitness, because I probably wouldn’t have otherwise gone to rent a bike on my own.
Do you exercise on vacation?
I love exercising on vacation, especially on the beach! I find it much more enjoyable to exercise when I have a little break from the stresses of real life while relaxing on vacation. And you’re totally right, it makes it so much nicer to exercise on vacation when there’s someone else there to give you a little motivation.
I try to exercise when on vacation. It’s nice to get in some movement in a different environment. You should totally do the OBX Marathon in November since you like the OBX so much!