“Every day I stay in this room, I get weaker; and every day Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger.”
– Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now.
In this case, “Charlie”, represents other runners I am in competition with and my fitness level in general.
Well, that’s about the size of it. Most days, we are traveling by 5:30 to 8:30 in the morning. We’re getting up somewhere between 3:30 AM and 6:30 AM. I might be done with dinner and get back at our hotel by 8 PM and by the time you get a shower and catch up on a few emails it is 10 PM and time to go to sleep.
And if you did have time to work out, for most of the places we are in there is no gym.
As for running, we’re mostly in places where it is:
A) Unsafe to run because you could be chased down by an animal.
B) Unsafe to run because of vehicle traffic.
C) Unsafe to run because the sidewalk, road or trail is just too cracked up to run on.
Or D) Unsafe to wonder about the local population without having your guide with you.
So our normal routine of running four days a week and working out with weights three more days a week has gone to shit.