Captdhd's Blog I'm On The Right Side Of The Turf!

The SHORT Version,

You can eat half way decent while attending a conference where most of your choices are limited and there is a nightly open bar.

You can keep your legs from going completely numb if you make sure to put about 2 miles of walking in between seminars, sun up to sundown.

If you show up at a industry conference with an open mind looking to learn something, you will be rewarded.

Even if you are a Po-dunk from a small region of the country you can make a decent showing on a national level in your industry if you work hard and play out on the edge most of the time.

5 Days on the road, I didn’t do anything to help though in turn I didn’t do anything to destroy my current 52 day challenge.

The MUCH LONGER Version

Mother and I crept into our home Thursday evening around 7PM, just a couple hours later than expected. Tired and a little chilled, we flew out under sunny 80 degree skies and arrived home in the middle of a cold rain. Back to reality.   

We had spent the last 5 days attending the Marine Dealer Conference and Expo at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Kissimmee Florida. Spectacular facility! The place sports a large atrium with its own indoor castle, 40 foot schooner, their own crop of lazy gators, and a myriad of live fish, everywhere! I would recommend it to anyone though be warned, bring your wallet!  

The conference is the first of two stretches I will be spending away from home and away from my scheduled life this month. The next starts on the 17^th and runs through the 22^nd and includes 2 events.

Over the stay I was able to make reasonably decent meal choices. When I weighted in this morning I had only gained 1 pound. This was a moral victory in itself for me. I have a great respect for folks like SWF who spend most of their business life traveling and eating out. When given the opportunity I made every effort to stick to protein and vegetables. At the sit downs I was cognizant of portion sizes. Did well not over indulging on the open bar and laid off the continental breakfasts.   

One thing about a place like this though, you can bet that you will put a few miles of walking a day just getting to and from the reason that brought you there.  Mother and I walked 10 miles if we walked 1! We took the stairs as often as made sense and took every chance to burn off some of the calories we were consuming between meetings.  

Other than the walking though I did nothing for exercise.  Of all the crazy things they charged extra for the weight room was nice, plenty of free weights and cardio equipment and free! Never used it though, Stupid! Guess I figured if it wasn’t really overpriced it wasn’t for me! Walked in and looked around, just never made the time.

Mentally, it was a very sound trip. I have arrived home with a number of solid ideas that I can begin to implement right off.

Physically, I am still a bit fatigued from the 7AM to 9PM schedule the conference was set upon. The walking added up over time but it wasn’t a consistent cardio for 30 minutes at any one time.  To be fair I am going to split the CE’s.

This is the trip where my company was recognized as one of the top 100 in the recreational marine industry. We placed #65. Not bad, room for improvement though the competition is firm! During the presentations the hosts announced that there used to be near 10,000 dealers in North America, over the past 5 years that number has dropped to around 6,000. I’m good being #65.

All in all, one pound for the week, I’m good. I have a week to get some circuit exercise in before I get off kilter again. By the scoreboard, even with being a slacker and slipping Thanksgiving in I should be able to meet all of my core and personal goals for the challenge.