run

Although most people try to plan workouts into a trip, some tourists plan trips around their workouts. These competitors learn that athletic excursions can expose new ways to exercise—and new ways to travel. Whether it’s a weekend stop to participate in a race or a two-month vacation to bike across countries, destination athletes are finding ways to make exercise their motivation to travel and travel their motivation to exercise.

“Run, eat, maybe sleep, repeat.” That’s how Marti Bowles describes a Ragnar Relay. Bowles’s adventure began when she became a last-minute fill-in on a professor’s team just a week before her first relay. This spur-of-the-moment experience sparked an addiction to the finish-line adrenaline that accompanies two days of running, sleep deprivation, and team bonding of which she now just can’t get enough.

Kristin Hatch, like many others, has always wanted to run a marathon. It has been part of her bucket list since she returned from serving a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2008. She wanted the chance to prove to herself that she could aim high, persevere, and see it through—a chance to prove that she wouldn’t give up. So you can imagine the shock when her doctor told her she couldn’t run because of arthritis in her knee. Yet, true to her character, she did it anyway.