Vacation Principles with Arthur and Alex

One of my co-workers was asking about my upcoming vacation and I describe part of what we had planned- backpacking, camping, sea kayaking, etc.  She looked at me with slight disgust and commented, “That doesn’t sound like vacation to me.”  So our idea of a vacation is different.  Maybe we should just refer to it as an adventure because our trips don’t include the rest and relaxation that the term vacation often denotes.  I'm sure this will change through different stages of our lives and someday a few quiet days in one place doing nothing will be just right.  But not now.  Here are our vacationing principles:

- Experiences are important.  This is why we travel, to experience new places and to try new things.  Currently these experiences are more outdoorsy and physical in nature.  I recently read an article about studies looking at a person's happiness with spending money on material items or experiences.  While material items last longer you might be continually reminded about a poor choice every time you see an item and are more likely to compare what you have to the Jones across the street. While satisfaction with a new thing or experience is about the same at the time of purchase, people have higher satisfaction with the experience for a longer time through sharing the memories with others.  Also an experience becomes a part of a person and shapes who they are.  On our trips we allocate more resources towards key experiences, which on this trip was backpacking Isle Royale, a guided sea kayaking trip to the Apostle Islands, and the Minnesota State Fair.  

- Eat well and eat at local or unique places. For Arthur eating is an experience.  Alex could eat PB and J sandwiches and not care.  On trips our general rule is avoiding fast food or chain restaurants.  This allows us to enjoy the local eateries and we haven't been disappointed.  Alex does usually check reviews to get a sense of the better places in the areas we will be in.  Normally we eat out of one meal a day when traveling.  This strategy helps with expenses and overeating on vacation.  This also usually gives Arthur the chance to pick something a little more exciting off the menu.  Eating a nicer meal once is still more cost effective that 2-3 fast food meals.  This technique also builds up anticipating for our "big" meal of the day.  For the other meals we have a picnic lunch or snacks and ate oatmeal or pop tarts for breakfast if we didn't have continental breakfast.

- Accommodations don't have to be ritzy.  With traveling having a place to rest your head to get some shut eye is necessary.  However I have trouble spending a lot of money for a place where I am just going to sleep and hit the road again the next morning.  Therefore we stayed in a variety of places.  This included a mom and pop hotel, small resort with shared bathroom facilities, backcountry camping,  campgrounds, and hotels.  Once again good reviews were helpful in finding affordable but clean and comfortable hotels.  I found it difficult to find accommodations in the tourist areas that we were at for a single night-- most required a two night stay.  Also prices were pretty high on Friday and Saturday nights so we camped on those nights.  We bought our tent last winter for about $150.  We have car camped at least 4 times on trips and have saved at least $500 on not getting a hotel.  So far it has been a good investment.  Saving money by car camping once or twice covered the cost of our sea kayaking adventure so it was well worth it.  However on nights before we were driving long distances it was worth the few extra bucks to get a hotel and a good night sleep.  Another trick we use is staying at state park cabins which are usually affordable, maybe a little rustic, but often have kitchen facilities to cook a few meals which is handy.

- Planning and preparation are key. One of my favorite hobbies is vacation planning.  I may have even planned vacations that I will never go on.  With this trip we were in 5-6 different areas throughout three states requiring planning to know what to do in each area.  Backpacking, especially to a remote area like Isle Royale, is only possible with planning and preparing.  I called rangers, requested state tourism packets, check reviews on Trip Advisor, and thumbed through several issues of Midwest Living.  I called to get reservations which was trickier than I expected (see next point).  We also had to pack regular vacation stuff, car camping equipment, and backpacking gear.  I also decided to make all our backpacking meals myself (for future reference buying Quaker instant oatmeal packets is worth it instead of making your own).  We are also old-school without a smart phone so having the right maps, addresses, itinerary, etc is important to have ready to go before hand. 

-Be flexible.  So planning is important but plans fall through.  This is where having a plan B or C is helpful.  One of the best things about traveling with Arthur is that he is flexible (not physically as he has trouble folding himself into small spaces like airplane seats).  He doesn't get flustered or upset if I have to change something on him.  Originally we were going to spend time in Duluth before our backpacking trip but then as I was calling to make reservations I found out that it was the same weekend as the Tall Ship Festival, one of the biggest festivals of the year.  Therefore we drove through Duluth the first weekend and came back to spend some more time later on.  On our trip we also had to be flexible when our ferry was delayed 6 hours.  We didn't have much of a choice because we were stranded on an uninhabited island but this did mean that Arthur wouldn't get to eat at the Angry Trout that evening like he had been looking forward to during 3 days of hiking.

- Enjoy the journey.  The activities and stops on a road trip are great but make sure to not miss out on the journey.  We really enjoy a good drive.  Our first day was 12 hours in the car and we really enjoyed listening to various radio shows or our audio book.  One evening we drove 4 hours through the north woods of Wisconsin and it was wonderful cruising down country highways and small town Main Streets.  You get a better feel for the area you are visiting.  Of course after backpacking there is always a deeper appreciation for covering large amounts of miles in the relative ease of plush leather seats which makes car travel seem luxurious.   Omnia Vincit Amor. 

 

We Tri Hard

Arthur has recently been reading articles about Navy SEALS and their training.  One concept that he has talked about over and over has been the 40% rule.  This rule is that when you think you have given it your all you are only about 40% there.  This idea shaped his last few weeks of training for our annual triathlon.  This is our third year to compete in the Salty Dog Triathlon.  As we have discussed before having this race at the end of the summer gives us a reason to leave our cool basement and get outside and train.  This year I struggled with running in the evenings due to the heat and we only biked a handful of times.  I borrowed my brother's road bike for the race and rode it once before race day.  The last week leading up to the race our "training" consisted of watching and evaluating the technique of world-class athletes swimming, biking, and running on the Olympics.
 A few months ago my friend Hillary, who competes each year with us, joined me in convincing my cousin Eleanor to participate.  She loves to run, tolerates biking, and is willing to swim only if it is necessary.  It is necessary in a triathlon.

We all met up in Hutchinson on Friday night for carbo-loading at Olive Garden prior to the race.  Eating at Olive Garden is one of the main reasons Arthur participates every year.  It is not because he loves getting up at 4:45am on the morning of the race.  Although this year he was a pretty good sport about the early morning.  He was a good sport all weekend, being subjected to conversation with a group of women that overall was lacking in football references.  We stayed at our friend Rachel's house and all the girls stayed up talking leaving Arthur to speed read a good book.
 

Here are our respective recaps of the race:

From Alex's perspective- Since this race is a stagger start with an individual starting every 5 seconds I had plenty of time to chat with the racers I was standing next to.  One guy was from Dallas and he and his daughter were competing on their family vacation on their way to Mount Rushmore.  It was a neat idea to incorporate road races across the country with vacation.  (Although we we tired enough afterwards that our 90 minute drive home was tough).  Finally it was my turn in the pool and I always struggle with swimming the 50 meter length since we train in a 25 meter pool.  I felt pretty tired after my first lap but channeled my inner Katie Ledecky to power through the last 300 meters.  My split in the race is never as good as how I do in training but at least the swim was behind me.  I jumped on the bike for my favorite part of the race.  The morning was cool with no wind and the course is flat which are perfect conditions for a good bike ride.  We ride 5 laps for a total of 10 miles.  With each lap I could tell I was ahead of my predicted time.  I rolled into the transition to running with 3 minutes to spare to meet my goal time which gave me a little wiggle room on the run.  Having wiggle room was good.  Biking felt great but I didn't realize how much it had taken out of me.  My thoughts for the first half mile of the run were-- is it okay if I walk, why did I sign up to do this, did I ever think running was fun, and why does it feel like my feet are cement blocks.  My first mile was on pace so I just had to keep it steady.  I was not trying to adopt Arthur's 40% rule.  Running was unpleasant; I didn't have the desire to push beyond my limits.  I finished with a PR of 1:12:27.  My average speed on the bike was 18 miles an hour.  On my regular bike my speed is about 12 or 13 mph so it was fun to fly.  I ended up winning my age group for the 2nd year in a row and was the 5th female overall.  After the race I did bump into one of my patients who was competing.  I helped her rehab after a knee surgery last spring so it was great to see her racing again even if she did beat me-- my competitive spirit is over taken by my inner PT desire of getting people back to the things they love.

Arthur's perspective:
As Alex said, reading about Navy SEALs really influenced my approach to the run.  This year I came in with the least amount of training on the bike and running as I have ever had any year of competing.  I swam more in training this year than ever before; ironically, it was my worst swim and best year for biking and running, the difference being that I came into the race deciding that I was going to bike as hard as I possible and then push for a 10 minute pace from the start of the run, regardless of how I felt.  This led to a 6 minute (7%) improvement on my best time.

I definitely hurt more during the race, but the self-satisfaction definitely offset that.  It's interesting that after all these years I'm finding that I've been saving too much for the end.  Athletically, I'll have to dedicate more time to figuring out how hard I can push, and hopefully run an even more intelligent race next year.  Philosophically, it somewhat serves as a case-in-point for the idea that people tend to be too easy on themselves, and that's a thought that could have far-reaching applications. 

After the race we continued to try to beat the clock by trying to get all of our stuff loaded up, driving across town, having 4 people tag team showers, and driving across town in about 1 hour for our post race celebration at IHOP.  For some reason waffles, pancakes, and omelets always hit the spot after a good race.  My aunt and uncle joined our crew for the meal so Arthur escaped listening to the endless chatter of girls and dove into an engineering discussion with my uncle about an HVAC ventilation problem he is working on at work.  My aunt entertained the rest of us with tales we hadn't heard about each of our parents and grandparents since all of our parents grew up attending the same church.

Once again it was a great triathlon and there is the sweetness of pushing our bodies to the limits.  The rest of the day we recovered by lounging in our recliners watching Olympic athletes push to the limits and beyond.  Omnia Vincit Amor.

Brought to you by the letter T

Our latest updates are brought to you by the letter T this week:

TV- As I am working on this blog I am watching the opening ceremony of the Olympics.  We sign up for cable for the month of the Olympics so we don't miss any of the action.  I am a huge Olympic fan and am prepared for the two week haul of staying up late watching the coverage while shouting for the USA.  Arthur is a little less of a die-hard fan and has already headed to bed at 10pm on a Friday night.  (Fun Fact- in keeping with our T theme the country of Tajikistan was just introduced).

Triathlon- We are competing in the Salty Dog Triathlon next weekend so we have been training over the past few weeks.  This has included rolling Arthur out of bed early to swim and myself hoping my last patients of the day are early so I can rush home to splash around for a few laps.  We have taking our bikes out and I am trying to ride my brother's road bike without wiping out since my feet are strapped to the pedals.  With such warm weather it has been more difficulty to get out the door for running.  And of course no that the Olympics are on our training next week will diminish as we sit in our easy chairs watching the best athletics in the world.

Trip- We are headed on our summer trip to Minnesota's North Shore in a few weeks.  We will also backpack on Isle Royale National Park so we have been gathering supplies, planning activities, and attempting to get reservations.  Getting hotel reservations for the weekend has been almost impossible and even the state park campgrounds are completely booked months in advance.  We are looking forward to our backpacking trip, sea kayaking at the Apostle Islands, and attending the Minnesota State Fair. 

Twins- We love being an aunt and uncle and our number of nieces significantly increased recently.  My brother and sister-in-law welcomed identical twin girls to their family.  Arthur got to see the girls after they were able to come home a few days ago.  He has fallen head over heels for them and said he was filled with warm fuzzies inside.  We get such a kick out of the older sister we are looking forward to watching these girls grow up.  Omnia Vincit Amor.