- MK
Fitness on the Road: 4 Things In My Bag
Updated: Feb 22, 2022
As a professional athlete and regular life-liver living life, I do a lot of travel!
From multiple-week long training and competition trips, to weekend getaways to see family and friends when I can, it seems like I'm on the go a lot.
Obviously, when I travel it is important that I keep up with my training as best as I can and stay healthy at the same time.
Travel is usually fun, but there's no doubt that a lot of times it means throwing daily routines out the window. Things just aren't the same!
With vacations, that's kind of the point. But if you thrive a least a little bit on routines to feel sane like I do, then it's nice to have a little stability on some of those trips.
Plus when I do have to be prepared to either race during that trip, or stay on top of training during it, I need to make it as easy as possible to do so.
And the first step to fitness on the road is making sure you have the right tools in your bag. This helps you keep up with the things you need to keep up with, and makes it easier to fall back into normal routines after the trip is over.
In this post I'm going to share three of the essentials I carry in my bag to keep up with fitness on the road.
1. Extra Hydration & Nutrients With Nuun!
Weird sleeping patterns, crowded airports, unusual diet...not exactly a recipe for staying healthy.
My solution?
I like to take some risk out of the travel equation with extra boosts to my immune system. I tried Nuun Rest on one of my trips in 2019, and I never looked back.
You can read my full Nuun Hydration review, but Nuun Rest is one of their product lines and is meant to help with recovery and getting a better rest.
The tablets come in tubes and dissolve in water. It's so easy!
I was certain I was getting sick after a few very long nights in a row, but thankfully I had this hydrating nutrient boost in my bag.
I got way less sleep than I should have, did hard workouts, but still fought it off.
I also brought some Nuun Sport for extra electrolytes during the hot Florida workouts.
One of the best parts about Nuun though is the Immunity line, which has an extra boost of Zinc and Vitamin C.
I actually swear by this stuff now for it's ability to help keep me fresh and healthy on trips (and always). The Immunity line also happens to have my favorite flavor of the entire Nuun product base, Blueberry Tangerine.
Pro tip: Empty tubes are perfect for packing other healthy essentials, like the daily gummy vitamins I packed in my bag here:
2. Rollers For Easy Recovery
I always underestimate how much I'll need to roll out on trips that aren't necessarily track related. Especially if there's no racing on the trip's schedule, I don't always think that my favorite recovery tools will be necessary.
However, rolling your muscles is helpful for everyone, not just professional athletes. If you're spending hours in a car or on a plane, walking around for miles in touristy areas, or anything else out of the ordinary that takes a toll on the body, then having some rollers in your bag is a game changer.
Whether you're sticking to your normal workout routine on the trip or not, rolling out can keep your body healthy and happy through the activities and sleeping in a strange bed.
Plus, when you get back to regularly scheduled programming after the trip, your body will be much more prepared to handle it because you've been treating it well.
It's not always easy to bring a full foam roller on a trip, and if you're not traveling for a running competition, it definitely doesn't have to be necessary.
For most of my trips, I bring other rollers that are smaller and fit in a bag. Here are some of my favorites:
a loose lacrosse ball
a loose tennis ball
All of these recovery tools are crazy effective and take up no space.
Rolling your foot around on a lacrosse ball can go such a long way after walking 600 miles on a sightseeing tour on top of the usual training or running you may be doing.
3. Skincare Made For Skin That Sweats
Keeping up a normal skincare routine when you travel isn't easy.
If you have an extensive collection of products, it's even harder. Usually you can't bring them all with you, so you have to pick and choose.
For me, this little bag of skincare made for active skin is my new favorite thing.
When I started using Fre Skincare (I share my Fre Skincare experiences here), I immediately wanted to bring it with me everywhere.
I've always struggled with maintaining a solid skincare routine and for most of my life even having one at all was a foreign concept to me.
The 123 set has changed this for me: I now have a 3-step routine that I can use each morning, night, and post-workout.
Best of all, it comes in travel sizes, so it can easily be thrown in a carry on for travel.
It's made for skin that sweats, is an essential in my bag no matter where I'm going.
If you're ever interested in trying it (you are, I promise no one I've led to it has told me otherwise), applying the code MADDIEKOPP at checkout will get you 15%-25% off the 123 Starter Set and possibly more on other products on the site.
Let me know what you think! I'm serious, I could talk Fre all day.
4. An Extra Coat- Like the UA Packable Rain Coat
This item made the list because I literally always. have. it. with. me.
Always.
Perhaps if I was traveling to a desert or an arctic tundra, it wouldn't come in handy.
However, most of my travel for competition is during the rainy Spring season and the Summer, when a light raincoat is the perfect addition to my bag.
So many times, I've been frantically searching through my bag to find this coat balled up at the bottom ready to save the day.
If "balled up on the bottom of my bag" sounds gross to you, listen up.
That's literally the point of this jacket!
The packable jacket folds up really easily and has a strap that holds it together. As you see in these beautifully modeled photos (this was a photoshoot I did with Under Armour one year), it's meant to fold up and be carried on runs easily.
So in a bag, it takes up essentially no space, and lets you bring a raincoat as an extra jacket. Which is perfect for getting in runs or whatever it may be even if it's a little chilly or there's some rain on your trip.
Better yet, if you want to bring it on your run, the strap fits perfectly around your hand for easy carrying when its not being worn.
Here is the link for the women's jacket and the men's jacket on the Under Armour website in black. They also have it in white and other varying patterns for both women and men.
Keeping Up With Fitness When Traveling
If you're on a trip to just relax, do it.
But if you're like me and you either need to keep up with workouts so you can perform well athletically, or doing some exercise energizes you, then you're going to need to bring things with you that make fitness easy on the road!
A carefully curated bag is crucial so you can focus on the races you're traveling to or just staying physically well on vacations or weekend getaways.
I'll be sure to share with you the best things in my bag as I continue to take my fitness routine on the road, but comment your favorites below so we can all check them out!
