Traveling and Tri Training

Sometimes if you take your pedals and bike shoes with you you can find stationary bikes at local health clubs that will work.

You might even post on this site exactly where you're going to be.  The membership on this board is so diffuse the locals may be able to help you out.  The big thing is to be flexible.  I remember swimming laps in the Hyatt Hill Country lazy river one early morning.  You just had to fight the occasional renegade inner tube.  I swam in Barton Springs one time.  I thought, how wonderful, they've roped off a swim lane.  I swam for about 15 minutes until someone pointed out to me it was roped off for an endangered species.

For the biking, if you can find gyms with spin-type bikes (aka bikes which allow you to nearly-replicate your road/tri bike geometry), those are great substitutes when you can't ride your own bike outside.

As for the swimming, I think as long as you know where you are going a few days in advance, just do a bit of research about the area and where the gyms/pools are. Make a few calls or send a few emails to find out better information - but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard most of the time. I'm coming from a situation where I have had to find pools nearby when I don't speak the langauge, which at first was really frustrating - but I realized that most of the time if you just put in a little effort, just asking a few questions can make life a lot easier

I hope it works out for you! I'm sure it will though

Right there with ya...

I travel 2.5-3 weeks out of the month, every month for work, luckily its usually to the same places so I've scoped out the gyms. Depending on the part of the country you live in, there may be a gym that has reciprocal memberships - ie I'm in CO and I travel to Nevada and Arizona, and my 24 hour fitness membership gets me into a club anywhere nationwide(although their clubs are mostly on the west coast) I just pack my sneaks and a swimsuit and goggles and I'm good to go.  I try to get most of my riding in on the weekends and run and swim during the week.  I'll try and jump in a spin class at the club local to where I'm travelling every now and then as that's the closest its gonna get to riding on the road.  Good luck, it can be done!

Just a thought... Some chain health clubs and YMCA's allow members to use their facilities in other cities. Maybe you could look into that possibility. That might give you access to a decent pool, and probably to spin bikes, which, while not ideal, are probably better than the electronic "exercise bikes" you might find in hotel fitness centers.

I have a couple of strength training programs that I can do in my hotelroom if worse comes to worse, so training is ALWAYS possible.

Call the hotels before booking and ask them if they have a pool and/or a gym. If not, ask them if they have a commercial gym or pool nearby and call them. Takes a few minutes, but most of the time, there's something around.