Wednesday, August 26, 2015

The good and bad of work travel

Hey gang!

I'm writing to you from Orlando, Florida where I have been since Tuesday morning.  Part of what I did over my birthday after I unpacked my bag from the wedding weekend was to repack my bag for the next trip. I flew early Tuesday morning to Orlando for a work trip, but actually planned to be in earlier than needed and took another vacation day on Tuesday!  When I found out I needed to be in Orlando this week for work, I first, tried to get out of it, wanting an easy week for my birthday, but then just decided to embrace it.

What made embracing a trip to Orlando easier was learning that my cousin Heather, who you know as one of the stars of the annual family music video, was randomly going to be in Orlando this week on vacation! I saw a post on social media about it and we chatted a bit and I learned that she was going to be here visiting the parks with some friends -- and also celebrating her birthday, which is the day before mine on August 23rd!

When we were little kids we used to always celebrate together with our families with a big end of summer pool party at my grandparents. It was always so fun and I loved those summer pool parties, but as the years have gone by and we've all gotten jobs and lives and moved away, they've become an impossible tradition to continue.


However, Heather was always my first birthday buddy and having the opportunity to meet up with her in Orlando was too much to pass up -- especially when I learned she was going to be going to Epcot on the exact day I was thinking of meeting up, which is a park I have always wanted to go to.


I flew in early, dropped my bag at the hotel, and head out to Epcot to meet up with my cousin.  We tried out the different "rides" and experiences throughout Futureworld in Epcot.  One of my favorite rides, which was a lot cooler than I thought it would be involved "designing" your own car and taking it on a test ride.  We made a very unique looking vehicle.




Another cool ride was getting to experience "the future" where we also had our futures explained to us and we got to view a cool video of ourselves in the future.  Things are gonna be awesome, guys.


We then walked through the different country pavilions exploring food, history and artifacts from around the world.  It was pretty cool to go from place to place and it was also pretty interesting as I am lucky enough to have traveled to most of the places that were in the exhibits.  It is crazy for me to say that but literally I have been to Canada, UK, Italy, France, Mexico, Germany, China, Japan, and of course the U.S.!




The countries I have not been to are Morocco and Norway -- and Morocco is on my list of places I want to go and Norway sort of reminds me of Iceland and I have been there.  I feel really lucky for the amount of travel I have had and I enjoyed reliving some of those experiences at Epcot.


It was BEYOND hot on Tuesday and I felt like I was melting for large majorities of the day.  There was nothing to do but embrace the sweatiness and it was one of the grosser hot days I have had in my life.  At one point we were sitting on the ground to watch a show and I felt like the heat of the ground was literally melting my pants and my butt.


After spending an awesome day with my cousin, I left the park and returned to my hotel to eat dinner, do some work, and get to bed on the early side since I needed to be up really early.  My work conference started at 7:30 a.m. and I had 8 miles scheduled to run in the morning!!

I knew it would be dark, had no idea of the location/area around my hotel in Orlando, it was hot as heck out, and also I had no desire to be able to say I "ran in Orlando" since I already did that earlier this summer.  So, I did those 8 miles on the treadmill.  Which is not ideal. Especially since I began my run before 5:30 a.m. so that I could finish and shower and be at my meeting by 7:30 a.m.



It was long and a little challenging mentally but I did it and I used listening to a podcast as a method to help get me through.  Listening to podcasts while I run is new to me but I actually like it a lot!  Let me know if you have any recommendations.  I'm still wishing that Serial was around because I loooved that!  But beyond that, to be honest, it wasn't really all that bad doing the miles on the treadmill.  I was trying to imagine myself doing a long run on the treadmill and sort of thought to myself, "Yeah I could maybe do that."

It is a good thing it wasn't too tedious to me because it won't be the last treadmill mile I run between now and the marathon!  I hate running on the treadmill because I feel like it isn't preparing me well enough or giving me a good marathon but it is better than nothing!

Afterwards it was work all day, lots of unhealthy food, and drinks in the evening.  A long and busy work day that had me taking the opportunity to sit whereever I could. I have been feeling a cramp in my right calf since Tuesday and I am wondering if it is from walking around on swollen feet but trying to take care of that and kept my legs raised for a portion of the day as well.  I'm glad I remembered to bring compression socks with me on the trip and am trying those out as well to hopefully help.

Hope you are having a great Hump Day and talk to you soon!!!

2 comments:

  1. Hey! Have you listened to The Nerdist podcast or Pete Holmes' You Made It Weird?! I like both of those since they talk to all sorts of people and have been around for years so there are a TON to listen to!

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    1. No, but I will check that out! I had to do 5 miles on the treadmill again this morning and I listened a podcast called Mystery that was in the most popular category and listened to an episode about Britney Spears. I thought it was terrible though haha

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