Do the work, no excuses is my mantra during workouts. Inside Greer Athletic Club last Thursday, the words were easy to follow. The personal trainer team was meeting in the middle of my workout space.
Propped up on their big workout balls as chairs, they were discussing next week’s Afterburn and group workout classes. It made it a little hard to do anything but my best on the other side of their peripheral vision.

This weekend though, I didn’t have access to their gaze or their equipment as I traveled to Boone, N.C. with my son’s baseball team. I had the opportunity to find out what I would do when no one was looking.
I asked Don Lowcavage, my trainer, to give me a plan and he did. I know from experience that without a plan, I’m destined to blow off workouts when I’m cooped up in a motel room or bouncing from field to field with little down time.

My first obstacle was the size of the motel room. Don had worked out a lunge/resistant band workout that should have been easy to accomplish with a door to hook the bands to but the way the doors were set, I would have lunged right into the wall. I decided to find a track and at least get in a run before our Friday morning game. We played at Watauga High School, home to a brand new rubberized track surface. First workout accomplished.
While at the track I noticed that the fence poles could be used to do my band workout. Sunday morning I returned to complete Don’s plan.

During Friday’s game I was talking to the Watauga coach tending the baseball field and he told me that right behind the track there was a greenway trail similar to our Swamp Rabbit Trail in Greenville. After my Sunday workout, I headed out on the trail that snaked across streams and cut through the green mountainside for a short run.
There will always be obstacles to working out. On the road away from our routine, there will be even more. Having a plan helped me stay the course. Talking to a local resident helped me find the gorgeous trail. I can go into this week’s sessions knowing I haven’t fallen behind. And that’s good news because two weeks into the program, I’m seeing enough results to keep me finding a way to do the work; no excuses.