A Crazy Week

Justin’s Post

This has been a crazy week.  I’ve been in the USA, China, The Netherlands and Peru, spending most of my time in airports, airplanes, factories, and hotels.  As I mentioned in my last post, which regrettably was over a week ago, I knew this business trip would be a challenge for me because of the limited opportunities for exercise and the business dinners.  And I was right.  I’m sad to say this in the last week I have exercised only once and I don’t even want to think about all the meals I’ve eaten.  I haven’t even seen a scale, so I really hope that I haven’t gained much weight.  Anyway, here is a quick summary of the past week.

I left on Tuesday morning to travel to Anqing China for my work.  Anqing is a small city (by China standards) about 300 miles west of Shanghai.  To get there I take a 1 hour flight to Detroit, have a 3 hour layover, take a 13 hour flight to Shanghai, spend the night there, and finally another 1 hour flight to Anqing.  Now it’s Thursday morning and I go straight to the factory to work the rest of the day.  My hotel in Anqing doesn’t have an exercise facility, which is very disappointing because I am not going to go running on the street (for many reasons).  But with the time change and long hours in the factory I’m not really in the mood to exercise when I’m done in the evening anyway.  I actually really like authentic Chinese food for the most part, except that the meat is not usually the most choice cuts (pig ears, cow stomach, chicken cartilage, for example).  So I didn’t exercise at all in China and I don’t think I helped myself with how much I ate.

I flew back to Shanghai on Sunday, and spent 12 hours there before starting on the next leg of my trip.  From there I was off to Lima Peru by way of Amsterdam.  I had an 11 hour flight to Amsterdam where I had a 5 hour layover before my 12 hour flight to Lima, which arrived Monday night.  Now I’m in Peru also spending long hours working in a factory, but at least my hotel has an exercise facility.  I exercised for the first time this trip last night.  The hotel is pretty old and so was all the equipment, but at least it worked.  The funny thing was that when I got there all the lights were off and I couldn’t find a light switch.  Eventually I decided to just run in the dark since there was enough light coming in through the windows to see.  About halfway through the lights turned on on their own, so I’m guessing they’re programmed to come on at a certain time.  I decided to run on a treadmill that was really annoying.  I selected a training program that had pre-programed speeds and inclines.  Soon after starting I decided that the speed was too slow so I sped it up.  The annoying this was that at each new leg of the program it would go back to the programmed speed even though I was going faster, so I would have to increase the speed again every time.  But at least I got some exercise.

Peru is a sobering place to visit because it is really, really poor.  So many people live in crude shelters built into the hillside with only rocky paths leading up to them.  It’s really dusty and dry with no vegetation, feral dogs all over, and many of the roads aren’t paved.  It makes me appreciate what I have and the opportunities and privileges of being from the USA.  I’ll be here for another week or so and hopefully I’ll be able to take advantage of the exercise facility regularly.

What I was proud of this week

Yesterday I finally got to exercise and I ate very reasonably at the buffet afterwards.

What I wasn’t proud of this week

Granted it isn’t possible to exercise on a plane or in an airport (unless you’re running to catch your connection!), and I my hotel in China didn’t have an exercise facility, but I didn’t even make an attempt to exercise.  I could have easily done pushups and sit-ups at the very least.

Track of the week

Beekeeper’s Daughter – The All-American Rejects