Roadside Attractions (to be or not to be)

I drove to Washington, D.C., yesterday for the Women & Biking Social Event, sponsored by Rose Physical Therapy and headlined by Molly Hurford and Peter Glassford. I'll get to the event (which was awesome) in a moment, but a big problem so many people have with road trips is maintaining nutrition. I both passed and failed at this, in the way life is a series of grey areas, and maybe talking it out will help us all learn together what can be done differently. Truth be told, I did know what I was doing wrong as I was doing it - the lesson is in listening to that voice that say, "you can just walk away now and no one will know you were here."

So I left the house around 7:30 and the drive was beautiful. Before I left, I uploaded some new music onto my phone, made a bunch of coffee, concocted a quick shake, and threw a few sports bars in my bag, knowing nutrition would be an issue for the long day of driving and seminars.

The good news is that I didn't need to stop at Starbucks or pick up some crappy and chemical breakfast food on the go. I also stopped halfway through to grab some fresh air, relax my eyes (and bladder), and do some quick calisthenics. Sitting in a car for that long - sitting anywhere, especially at a slant - really upsets my tailbone and getting up and moving can relieve some of that pressure from my spine and make my muscles relax. I'm starting to figure out that when my tailbone hurts, especially now that I'm also coordinating with an injured shoulder, and the weather is colder, it affect other parts of my body, including the middle of my back. When the muscles in the middle of my back are tightened, they pull at my spine and make the stenosis painful, and it's easy for my to feel the debilitating pinched nerve I so fear. I should have done more, stopped more often, but I was nervous about potential traffic in DC and didn't want to try my good luck. I stretched out some muscles and got the blood flowing on the side of the highway, and that's at least a good start.

A couple moves I like to do that aren't too distracting to other travelers: cross-legged jumping jacks (with or without arms, depending on how my shoulder is feeling), one-legged squats, and jump lunges. These can all be done next to the car without having to touch the ground, which can be covered in broken glass or other unpleasantries, and don't attract too much attention. On longer trips, I've also carried a kettle bell.

We had a lunch scheduled, and I had timed my shake and half bar so I'd get hungry right at 1, so that I wouldn't be snacking on unhealthy bits or too ravenous at lunch. This kind or worked out, as I was hungry right around 1 p.m., but lunch was significantly (from my stomach's perception of time) delayed, and I started to get hangry. Luckily, I still had the other half of the bar left in my bag and no heads rolled, nor were tears shed - a legit victory. 

As a group, we went to Shake Shack, another sponsor of the event, but they didn't have anything that was both vegetarian AND gluten free, so I got french fries. Having a whole day in the car, being stagnant, fries wasn't the best option, but I was in a bit of a bind, as everyone else was already eating. So that was the first misstep. I will say, though, that those fries were damn good and definitely filled me up, despite the small portion. I suppose an immediate injection of ~1000 calories will do that to a body.

Fortunately, Rose PT had an incredible spread of food, including a warm bean dip, hummus, tortilla chips, and fresh vegetables. This was a great switch and a healthy provider of aminos, fats, salt, carbs, and more. The second misstep was that they also had candy spread around the room. I took a couple modest handfuls of jelly beans and kept my distance from the rest. Then the pumpkin custard was brought out. By the time I needed to hit the road for the long drive back to the 'Burgh, Claire, the owner of the center, had filled a cup of caffeinated tea and another of jelly beans and chocolate covered espresso beans. That's when I knew I had officially failed the "healthy travels" portion of the blog post I was previously excited to write. On the drive home, I was slightly disappointed with myself for the snacking, and mainly driven to get home and not freeze my butt off. The temperature had dropped to 23 degrees, according to a man at the Somerset rest stop who just announced that to the air as if his divine watcher had asked. When I come up with a series of exercises that can be done inside without causing total embarrassment, or even in the car, I will certainly let you all know.