As always, it's about the shoes.
Packing and the difficulties thereof, that is. After a fair number of years of semi-regular traveling, I'm pretty good at fitting clothes and necessities into various types and sizes of bag. At the airport Saturday, I saw a number of young women tugging at ENORMOUS wheeled suitcases, having clearly just returned from Spring Break somewhere warm (the cut-off shorts in chilly weather were a giveaway, I admit), and I couldn't help but wonder what on EARTH they'd put in those bags: each was bigger than the suitcase I'd lived out of for three months in the UK not long ago.
So yeah: packing, I can do. Until we get to the shoes.
Shoes don't fold. They don't roll up. And if they're running shoes like I usually take, they really can't help but take up an inordinate amount of space in a suitcase. My Fabulous Sister and I deliberately took check-in luggage on our own holiday last week precisely so we could bring workout gear and not have to futz with the damn shoes.
This week I'm off to a several-day conference, and since I've got my usual 13-hour day at work tomorrow, I'm doing some of the packing today. As I've just officially started training for a half-ironman race in August (see note below), I need to bring my shoes. (Oh, and my goggles, too-- mustn't forget those.) Fine: the running/gym shoes are packed. But what to wear during the rest of the day? My trusty Nikes, which have the virtue of being unquestionably supportive and comfortable and are at least Gore-Texed? Or boots of some kind, since it's likely to be around freezing and/or snowing while I'm there?
Sigh. Decisions, decisions-- but there's no way I'm bringing TWO pairs of shoes to this thing.
Note Below: As some of you may vaguely recall, I was planning to run the L.A. Marathon this past weekend to raise money for LIVESTRONG. That plan got derailed, alas, due to a tendon injury that took about 3 months to recover from. But fear not, for lo! I am determined to complete a fundraising race AND to give my lovely donors good value for their money-- so I've signed up for the Steelhead half-ironman distance triathlon on August 14 in Benton Harbor, Michigan. A half-ironman (or HIM) race involves 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles of biking, and 13.1 miles of running-- so it's a BIG challenge, but it'll involve less outright pounding on my feet and tendons, I figure, so it's doable. It does rather mean that I need to take my workout gear with me everywhere I go, though...
So yeah: packing, I can do. Until we get to the shoes.
Shoes don't fold. They don't roll up. And if they're running shoes like I usually take, they really can't help but take up an inordinate amount of space in a suitcase. My Fabulous Sister and I deliberately took check-in luggage on our own holiday last week precisely so we could bring workout gear and not have to futz with the damn shoes.
This week I'm off to a several-day conference, and since I've got my usual 13-hour day at work tomorrow, I'm doing some of the packing today. As I've just officially started training for a half-ironman race in August (see note below), I need to bring my shoes. (Oh, and my goggles, too-- mustn't forget those.) Fine: the running/gym shoes are packed. But what to wear during the rest of the day? My trusty Nikes, which have the virtue of being unquestionably supportive and comfortable and are at least Gore-Texed? Or boots of some kind, since it's likely to be around freezing and/or snowing while I'm there?
Sigh. Decisions, decisions-- but there's no way I'm bringing TWO pairs of shoes to this thing.
Note Below: As some of you may vaguely recall, I was planning to run the L.A. Marathon this past weekend to raise money for LIVESTRONG. That plan got derailed, alas, due to a tendon injury that took about 3 months to recover from. But fear not, for lo! I am determined to complete a fundraising race AND to give my lovely donors good value for their money-- so I've signed up for the Steelhead half-ironman distance triathlon on August 14 in Benton Harbor, Michigan. A half-ironman (or HIM) race involves 1.2 miles of swimming, 56 miles of biking, and 13.1 miles of running-- so it's a BIG challenge, but it'll involve less outright pounding on my feet and tendons, I figure, so it's doable. It does rather mean that I need to take my workout gear with me everywhere I go, though...