Hope someone familiar with Boston can help me out. Tried to search the forum, but as soon as you put ‘Boston’ in the search you can imagine the results.
I will be in Boston for 5 days at the beginning of April for a conference and currently training for IM. I am looking forward to running the streets of Boston, but I need at least one workout in the pool and would like to try and hit a spinning class if possible. I will be staying at Boston Marriott Copley Place Hotel on Huntington. I am looking for a gym/pool with a daily drop in rate somewhat close to my hotel. If I can only get a pool I will settle for the crapping bikes in the hotel workout room.
Swim at MIT if you can make it over there. $15 drop in rate, but it’s an AWESOME facility. As opposed to what you get when you type “Boston” into the search bar, “MIT pool” should be better. ~25 minute walk from your hotel, and a lovely walk over the bridge at that.
I assume if you’re staying at the Marriot, it’s not the SAE conference? (If it is, I’ll see you there)
Unfortunately I’m just north of the city, so I’m not real familiar with the gyms in the city itself, but I would second MIT, and also suggest looking for a YMCA - they have daily drop in rates, spin classes, and decent pools.
MIT is very popular and definitely has the best facilities you will find. It’s pretty convenient – you can either take a nice little run over the bridge or hop on a bus to take you over (although that will add to the cost).
If you want to go the YMCA route, the closest one is the Wang YMCA in Chinatown. I don’t know about the drop-in rates there, but there’s a 3-day Pass available online right now. Full disclosure: it says it is only valid for MA residents, but I doubt they would really care.
If you do go to the Y, make sure to check the schedule because there are only 5 lanes and up to 4 of them can be reserved for classes/lessons at various times.
In case you didn’t know…as far as running goes, the esplanade around the Charles river will give you all the traffic free mileage you will need. Would be <5min run from that Marriott.
Technically it stretches ~11 miles (if you’re starting from MGH) out to Waltham, although the majority of runners only use the ~10 mile loop that goes from MGH down to Harvard and back. If you use Garmin Connect the heat map pretty clearly shows that.