Traveling Athletes: Jim Kaese

March 25, 2005

EnduranceRadio.com

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Welcome back to EnduranceRadio.com, thanks for joining us for another interview today.  We’re going to be speaking with Jim Kaese.  He’s one of the co-authors of The Athletic Minded Traveler, and Jims a traveling fitness author and a business entrepreneur.  He’s had a successful law practice and he’s had a live weekly television in Chicago.  He’s move to San Diego and he’s also runs an endurance athlete coaching business there as well.  So we’re going to be talking to Jim about his book and for those of you out there that travel quite a bit and want to find out how to keep with your workout while you’re traveling, which can be a tough thing to do, we’re going to be talking about that Jim because his book is all about doing that.

The Race of the Day today is the Lake Las Vegas Triathlon.  It’s on Sunday, April 3, 2005.  You can find out more about this race by clicking on the Race of the Day link right below the link to this audio interview.

So we’re going to be right back to speak with Jim Kaese right after this.”

“Fleet Feet Sports is a unique specialty store catering to the individual needs of runners, triathletes, walkers and anyone interested in getting and staying fit.  Specializing in footwear, apparel and accessories for athletes, you’ll find everything you need to perform and look your best.  Fleet Feet Sports, your headquarters for races, training, seminars and clinics related to running, multi-sport, swimming and fitness.  Come in today or visit us online at www.fleetfeetln.com.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Jim thanks very much for joining today, I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us on the phone here.”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “No problem Tim, I’m happy to be with you.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “So how long did it take you to gather all this information about all these different hotels and workout facilities all over the country?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Well the research alone took about three months.  We started with basically looking at every hotel and fitness venue in the 78 popular travel destinations, so it was over 2500 venues, and then we narrowed the list down to 1100 of our semi-finalists, and then we actually went across the country to 1100 of these locations and personally toured them, because we knew if we were going to making recommendations we wanted to be right on and wanted to be credible, so we knew we were going to have to see them with our own eyes.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Well for people who travel quite a bit, and I do myself, you don’t eat as well, it seems you don’t get to workout as well, your schedules all messed up.  How do you combat that and have the discipline to make sure you stick to your program?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Well the first thing that works for me and a lot of people that I talk too, and actually was one of the reasons why we wrote the book, is if you know that the place that you’re staying has facilities that are conducive to your healthy lifestyle and active lifestyle, where its swimming or lifting weights or running on a treadmill or even going out and running on trials, that’s usually half the battle.  I always think that what motivates me most to go ahead and go workout is if I know theres a true state of the art fitness facility waiting for me downstairs in my hotel, and so if you can identify properties and stay at a hotel, going into your trip, before you even get on the plane, and you know that they’re going to have a great facility there for you, then I think that’s conquering more than half the battle.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Obviously your book is a fantastic resource.  Were most hotels, on their websites, descriptive of that or is it something they tend to leave out and you’ve got to call ahead and really see what’s available there?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Yes, even calling most of the time won’t give you an accurate description because for some reason the travel and hotel industry really doesn’t treat the fitness aspect of their hotel property as a priority.  They just don’t get it, for some reason one of the most overused terms in the travel industry is ‘state of the art fitness facilities’ and triathletes know that in addition to that so many hotels will claim to have lap pools or even Olympic size lap pools, and we all know that means it 50 meters in length, well these hotel staff, even if you call them directly, they don’t understand it, so they’ll say they have state of the art fitness facilities and it’ll probably be like a closet size room with a few machines; sometimes they don’t even run.  Their Olympic size lap pool will be a circular shape or an ‘S’ shape pool without any lane lines or lane bottom stripes, and often too I’ve been at hotels and they advertise and promote themselves as having nearby running routes, and then you ask the concierge for the directions to the running route and they’ll give you a card that says run around the hotel, like a four block square loop, ten times or something.  Meanwhile, theres like an 800 acre park two miles away, but conceptually the hotel staff just doesn’t understand or realize that people will run two miles to get to an 800 acre park and then run back.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “So assuming that somebody’s done the planning and read the description in your book and picked a hotel, not just because of the price but because of the availability of this workout facility.  What are some things that people can do in terms of staying on program?  Should they be working out the same time on the road as they’re used to doing at home?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “No, I always tell people that what you should when you’re traveling is just maintain your level of fitness.  So you’re not going to be wanting to increase strength, you don’t want to be worrying about increasing endurance, just maintain, just do enough that’s going to keep you on par on the same level as of fitness as when you were at home, so that usually means, in terms of cardio, if you want to do 30 minutes in the pool, on the elliptical machine, on the treadmill or a 30 minute run, that’s going to be enough.  Just set a moderate effort, it doesn’t have to be some killer fartlek session or anything like that, and then when it comes to eating don’t stress over what you’re taking in.  You’re not going to have the same amount of control as you do at home as to what’s going into your meals.  Yes, you can order salads with dressing on the side or light oils etc, but you’re still not able to prepare the meals yourself; so exercise will help you combat that, if you have a meal or two that end having more of a fat content than you typically have at home, but don’t stress over the meals.  And then the key is to try and get seven hours of sleep if you can.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Did you find any airports or any place like that that had workout facilities as well as hotels.”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Oh yes, Las Vegas actually, theres a 24 Hour Fitness in the airport, and actually if you’re delayed, if your flight is delayed, the airline will give you a discounted pass to the facility.  Now they don’t have a pool there but they have everything else that a typical 24 Hour Fitness or a typical upscale health club will have; all your weights and cardio equipment etc, so that’s one place.  San Francisco, I believe, has an exercise facility as well, and then theres a hotel right next to O’Hare airport in Chicago that has a decent fitness facility.  So there definitely are airport facilities out there.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “For international travelers, you know, when you’re stuck on a plane for that long, it makes its tough; getting up and stretching is obviously one way to do it, but any other recommendations while you’re on these long flights that you can do to maybe get some stretching in or something?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Yes, that’s tough.  You can do glutial squeezes in your seat.  Getting up and walking the plane every couple of hours is always a great idea and just trying to stretch out.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Some of these bigger planes I guess they’re talking about they might actually have a small gym in them, although that might be available only to first class people, we’ll see.”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Yes, that’s probably how they’d roll it out; first to try it with the expensive seats and then see how it goes.  They’re also, on Virgin, they have some in their business and first class sections, like massage treatments and so forth.  Its tough when you’re on the plane, I think you’ve just got to be creative and, at the very least, just get up and walk because you don’t want to be hit with any kind of blood clotting or anything like that in your legs, which you hear about, you hear horror stories about.  Just stretching your upper body and maybe doing some breathing and yoga type exercise or movements in terms of the breathing aspects, the breathing exercises.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Did you find any hotel chain in particular that seemed to cater a little bit more to athletes, or is it strictly a hotel by hotel basis?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “It’s really city by city.  What I did find interesting is that not even your Four Season and Ritz Carlton Hotels and your five star hotels are a guarantee of having a fantastic fitness facility.  A lot of times in a particular city there might be a Fairfield Inn or a Hampton Inn that’s down the street from a great health club, they don’t have a health club on site but they’re down the block from a health club that they give a free pass to.  We wanted to cover all the bases though, so for each city we have hotel recommendations in three price categories, because we knew that everybody travels on the same budget, so you’ll three price categories or recommendations in three price categories in the book and often times the moderately price hotel, your Hilton or your Hyatt, might have a better situation or better setup than your five star Four Seasons or Ritz Carlton.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “What were some of the common things that you found, I mean most of these places, if they have somewhere, they have a treadmill or did you really just find a whole different gambit of equipment no matter where you go?”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Now pretty much all of our recommendations; theres 500 recommendations, more than 500 recommendations in the book, and pretty much you’re guaranteed, with any of our recommendations, to have the latest in equipment in terms of treadmills, elliptical trainers, bikes, as far as cardio equipments goes, then they’ll also have strength equipment, weights, dumb bells etc, and usually, I’d say nine times out of ten, theres a true lap pool on site, and then nearby running routes as well, and what we wanted to do is; my wife, for example, she’s not a hard core triathlete or anything, but she likes to workout, at the gym she likes to workout on these pre-core elliptical machines, and when she travels she likes to use that same machine, its her favorite machine, and all the machines differs so people have their preferences, and so what we wanted to do was not only identify the properties and say, ‘Okay, this has a great facility,’ but also give specific breakdowns on why they are great facilities, so we talk about it having, for example, we have a chart, a breakdown on each page that says they have five life fitness treadmills or three pre-core elliptical machines or, as far as the pool goes for example, we say that its got a 25 yard pool and they provide you the toys, kick boards and pull buoys for example, so its really specific information.  And then, of course, we also talk about your typical criteria that you want to know about a hotel, whether it has room service and free breakfast buffets and what the rooms are like, so it really covers all the bases.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “That’s great.  Well we’re just about out of time, but listeners you can click on the Athletic Minded Traveler link right below this audio interview link and so to Amazon and take a look at that book.

Jim thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us.  Thank goodness somebody finally came out with a book like to help us all out.”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Yes, that’s exactly what we were trying to do, just help people with their workouts when they travel and so far so good, it looks like we’re able to do that.”

<<Tim Bourquin>>: “Excellent.  Well thanks for spending time with us today.”

<<Jim Kaese>>: “Thanks Tim.”

About EnduranceRadio.com

http://www.EnduranceRadio.com offers online radio programs and interviews with endurance athletes and coaches at all levels. Visit their site today and listen to everyday athletes just like you and also professional endurance athletes talk about how they train, eat and race. Weekend warriors and serious competitors alike will find something they can implement into their own training and technique immediately from each day's program. A new interview is posted each weekday.