The next several weekends I'm going to be on mini-vacations. It's one of the things I love about summer -- the ability to pack up and escape the city for a few days to go to the beach, or back home or other fun places.

All that traveling can make running challenging though. It's hard to be constantly in new places and stick to any form of running routine.

Weekends are reserved for my long runs, but sometimes the last thing I want to do is spend a couple hours out running when I could be hanging out with people I haven't seen in a long time.

On weekend getaways, I usually try to fit in at least one run, even if it's short. My theory is that something is always better than nothing.

So here's my game plan for the next few weekends:

1. Pack all things necessary for running. (Duh, the first step is to be prepared.)
2. Use mapmyrun to scope out possible running areas before I leave. Identify what roads would be safe for running -- do they have wide shoulders, a sidewalk, very little traffic. That can be hard to tell for sure, but the size of the road on a map will give me an idea.
3. Pay attention when I'm driving in to town. Do my assumptions about road safety from looking at the maps match up to what the reality is?
4. Take Garmin (if you have one) so I know how far I've gone.
5. Get up and go super early. Other people will hardly object to me getting my run out of the way in the morning, but they might give me a hard time if running conflicts with the day's activities.