The trick to progress is to be consistent. But how can you be consistent when you have to travel and have no clue where you will end up? I have that this week, which means it’s going to be a week full of surprises.
We’re in Salento, the south of Italy. In Zollino to be precise. Teaching a yoga retreat for La Scimmia Yoga between the olive trees at Yoga in Salento. It’s the perfect surrounding to relax and learn: quiet countryside, hammocks between fig trees, a swimming pool, and vegan meals made from the biological veggies out of their own garden.
Where to run?
But the question is, where to run? It’s always the question when I have to travel for work. Holidays are another story. I can choose the countries, the national parks where I want to run, and find a little bed & breakfast nearby. Last year for example Sara and I went to Scotland, because I wanted to to run the Three Mealls Race at Skyline Scotland. This year we’ve picked Austria for a running holiday.
Work however, is a different story. We’re always looking for nice places to teach. Nice means relaxed, but organised. Good rooms, good food and especially a good yoga shala. See, there are a lot of places where you can teach yoga, but not a lot of places that are made for teaching yoga. The difference? The shala. I don’t like teaching next to the pool, as lots of places offer. Yoga isn’t funny when the sun burns down on you, and it isn’t funny when the mosquitos are zooming in your ears and are biting you everywhere they can bite you.
Eventi Belli
Luckily we have Elena of Eventi Belli. She is our location spotter and organiser, and she comes up with the coolest places to do retreats. Like Yoga in Salento. Yet, a retreat place isn’t always a great place to run. So whenever we do a retreat, I’m in for a week full of surprises.
That also means that my running schedule is empty this week. I should run around 80 kilometers in total, to stay on schedule, but that’s not going to happen. My priority here is teaching yoga anatomy, a few yoga classes and taking photos and videos of all the other teachers. Running comes second.
Discovery run
And not just that; I also have to figure out if I can run, and if so, where? This morning I did my first discovery run. I created a route in the AllTrails app. The run was fun, the app not. It’s seriously out of date. Roads that are existing in the app, are not existing anymore, so I had to turn around a lot of times.
However, I did discover some nice, little hills and single tracks. So this week, probably will be a week with hill sprints, hill bounding and recovery in the swimming pool, because that’s what this place has to offer as well. And to be fair, I like swimming, so it’s nice to be in a pool again. Doesn’t that sound like a good week full of surprises.
