7 Ways to Keep Terrible Travel From Blowing Your Taper

Photo Courtesy: Alex Graves

By Emma Foster, Swimming World College Intern

You’ve done everything to prepare for your championship season. Junk food has been quit cold turkey, you’re asleep several hours earlier than usual, and taper seems to be going perfectly. Everything is pointing towards signs of fast swims.

But sometimes, even after all of the preparations you have done, things go wrong on the first leg of the trip. Travel can involve many surprises. You can’t control delayed flights, weather problems, or traffic, but what you can control is how you react to all of these unexpected obstacles.

Here are some tricks to handling those terrible travel days:

1. GET OFF YOUR LEGS

the official white house photostream-get-off-your-legs

Photo Courtesy: White House Photo Stream

The last thing that you want to do when your plane has been delayed is run around the airport all day. During taper you have been resting your body so that it won’t be tired or sore going into your swims. Don’t let travel changes interfere with this. Find a comfy place to camp out and sit down. Try to stay off your legs unless you are stretching them out with a light walk. You don’t need to go to the opposite end of the airport to entertain yourself.

2. STRETCH

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Being confined all day is going to make your body feel a little stiff. Try to take the time to engage in active stretching whenever you’ve been sitting too long. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get a team stretch going at the boarding gate.

3. DRINK WATER

Photo Courtesy: Amrae Powell

This is so important. Travel is naturally dehydrating, and long days can make it easy to forget to drink water. Remind your teammates and keep those water bottles filled. Also, make sure that you’re hydrating with water instead of sugary drinks, as these aren’t going to keep you as hydrated as water will.

4. EAT WELL

Photo Courtesy: Peggy Greb

Just like drinking water, during long days it can sometimes be easy to forget to eat regular meals. Even at the airport, try to keep on a somewhat normal eating schedule with regular meals instead of a lot of snack food. Remember that all airport food is not created equally, and make sure what you are putting in your body is healthy, substantial food that will set you up for success in the next few days.

5. DON’T GET FRUSTRATED

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Delays can be frustrating, and it’s easy to get wrapped up in the frustration, or start to worry about what the travel changes can mean for your meet. Do your best to take a deep breath and let the frustration go. To a certain extent you have to trust that things will work out and you will get where you need to be. Take care of the details you can control, and let the other things go.

6. DO HOMEWORK/LIMIT SCREEN TIME

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As much as you might not like it, delays give you an opportunity to get some homework done. Take advantage of this, because you aren’t going to want to do it later in the week. Also, try not to waste too much time looking at bright screens, like on your iPad or iPhone. The bright light is known to make you feel more tired than you actually are.

7. SLEEP

Photo Courtesy: A. Weisenfels

At a certain point, all you can do is take the opportunity to sleep. Swim parkas are perfect to double as a sleeping bag, but any sort of jacket will do. Find a corner, and conk out. Just make sure there’s a teammate to make sure you’re awake for when your flight is ready to board!

There’s a lot you can do to control unfortunate travel situations. The most important thing to remember is that no matter what happens on the first leg of your journey, once you get to the competition pool you can let it all go and focus on swimming fast.

Happy travels!

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