Everyone has their own habits: the time of the alarm clock, what to eat on Thursdays, the way to go to work. A typical habit of runners is that of the route. Especially if you are preparing a race and you have to measure yourself, the best way to do it is to train on a route that you know well and against which you can better evaluate the improvements or not.
Panic!?
What happens, however, if this very habit of yours is upset? What happens if you have to run in a place you don’t know about?
When you are on holiday you want to continue to train but you probably can not do so on the roads to which you are accustomed. It is certainly not the case to give up doing so, just put into practice some advice 😉
Ask the locals
It’s not the most original advice but it’s always effective. Who better than the natives can tell you where to run? In these circumstances can help you the hotel keepers, the runners of the place (maybe known on RinLovers Club – what do you say? Not registered yet? And what are you waiting for?) or even people you know through the most common running apps and know that they make those routes their own.
And if you don’t stay in a hotel, how can you recognize a runner in plain clothes? But it’s very easy: look at what he wears on his wrist and you’ll know which tribe he belongs to. It’s also a friendly and effective way to click a button: “I see you use that GPS, how do you find yourself? Ah, since I’m not from here, could you recommend some nice routes to take?”. Wait!
Search on the net
Often the most visited cities are mapped on the net (you can also find tracked routes on Google Maps). Some sites collect the most beautiful routes divided by area and mileage, so you can also adjust with the times: for example you know how long you run 10 km and you can then choose the type of route according to its length.
Serendipity
There is this beautiful expression that means “to find beautiful things by chance”, or at least so I will decline it in this case.
It means going out to run in an unknown place without knowing where to go but letting yourself be inspired only by something that attracts you. It can be a particularly beautiful road or a pleasant descent (not forgetting that on the way back it will become a climb!), a forest, a park, an inviting corner. The rule is to orient oneself only to sensation, not worrying about times and mileages. You have to run according to the inspiration of the moment, trusting in the fact that if a detail has attracted your attention means that you have to follow that path, because the discovery manifests itself with beauty.
To put it into practice you don’t have to follow a rigid training program because it doesn’t provide safe times or precise distances. The only time is the one you decide to take.
Inform yourself (for your own safety)
Even if you’re on vacation or have half a day off on a business trip, relying on chance and inspiration may not always be a good idea. So, especially if you’re in a big city that isn’t known for its safety, it’s best to find out about certain details:
- Dangerous roads without sidewalks
- Dangerous roads because they are not well-lit
- Uncommon areas
Generally, in the vast majority of cases, historic centres are the safest and also most interesting places to run. If you follow them at a certain speed, you can already get to know them, then visit them more calmly and walk the next day.
Running is discovering
Often one thinks of running as limited to training alone. As if everything were expressed in that situation and there it was over. But running, especially on routes you don’t know about, can be a way to get to know new places at high speed and to understand something more about yourself: are you brave and like to take risks, i.e. roads you don’t know? Are you too much of a habit and tied to paths you already know? Are you too attached to training tables and the idea of not being able to know how fluid a route is or not and what level changes it presents make you uncomfortable? Well, in the latter case, I have a friendly tip: are you on holiday, but you’ll want to relax at last?!
