Friday Five - vacation fitness

Happy Friday!  I hope everyone had a good week.  It's Friday and that means it's time for the Friday Five link up hosted by Running on Happy & Fairytales and Fitness.  It's also a week until I leave for vacation!  So I figured I'd talk about 5 ways to stay fit on vacation.

1.  Races!  I don't combine all my vacations with races but it's nice when that works out :)  My plan for this particular vacation includes a stop in Disneyland to run the 10k and the half marathon for the Superheroes race weekend.

 

From my last Disney vacation race

2. Take advantage of the location you're in.  All vacation spots have something special about them.  It makes sense to combine the sights with activity whenever possible.  I know a lot of cities have running tours or cycling tours of the cities possible.  I'm going to be in Hawaii which is all about the ocean so I'm going to be sure to include some snorkeling and paddle boarding while I'm there.

The last time I went paddle boarding was on vacation in New Jersey

3.   And of course, a lot of vacation spots have natural beauty that can be explored on hikes . I've got several hikes bookmarked for while we're in Hawaii.  But whenever possible, using your own feet to see the area is a great way to combine sight seeing with fitness.

 

Glacier hiking in Iceland was definitely a workout!

4.  Take advantage of your hotel.  Most hotels these days have fitness centers available.  And many have pools.  I'll definitely be taking advantage of those.  But it's worth digging a bit deeper to see if they have other offerings too.  It turns out that the hotel we're staying at has complimentary fitness classes and I'm looking forward to some beach side yoga.

 

The view from poolside yoga I found at a Vegas hotel

5.  Relax!  Or course, vacation should include some relaxation too :)  And let's face it, fitness should include fitness for the soul as well as the body.  I'm planning on plenty of time to just relax by the water and re-center myself after a busy year.

So those are my plans for incorporating fitness into my vacation.  I find it always helps to incorporate it into the plans for the vacation from the beginning and to make it fun, and to include things you can't easily do at home!  It is a vacation after all :)