ORLANDO, Fla. — As a frequent business traveler to Europe and Canada, Steve Scivally of Winter Park makes sure his passport is packed.
And his running shoes.
“I love architecture,” Scivally said. “I would pick natural and architecture over museums and paintings and things. Running the streets, you notice the places you are supposed to see as a tourist.
“You see all the stuff in between, like you see a neighborhood and not just the one little church on the corner. You get a much better feel of a city.”
A veteran of 12 marathons, Scivally, 45, works as a technical director at EA Sports. He travels frequently to oversee his far-flung team.
Scivally’s work takes him to Bucharest, Romania; Stockholm, Sweden; Madrid, Spain; just outside of London; Vancouver, British Columbia; San Francisco; and Baton Rouge, La. He used to spend quite a bit of time in Montreal, too.
Because marathon training requires a commitment that does not end at the airport gate, Scivally schedules runs on the road.
“A couple of weeks ago, he was in San Francisco, and it was (in the) 50s, and we were like, ‘Oh, you suck,’ ” said Hannah Jennings, one of Scivally’s running partners. “He does not talk too much about (his travels), just that he had been running or he couldn’t run outside because there were a lot of dogs.”
Scivally has run near Dracula’s Castle in Romania, through Stanley Park in Vancouver and kept his legs moving as the Golden Gate Bridge dominated the landscape.
“I ran a — I want to say — an 8K race in Romania a year or two ago,” said Scivally, who has an online coach to coordinate workouts. “Old school. Index cards for the top 10 finishers. Blue cards for the men, pink cards for the women. That’s it. They hand you a card with a number.
“No timing chip. No nothing.”
Scivally was a cyclist in high school and rowed on a club team at the University of Alabama. His first official race as a runner was the Corporate 5K in 2008.
“I set a goal of finishing in 24 minutes — not sure why, just what I had been doing in training,” he said. “I finished right at 24, and it didn’t hurt.”
Scivally never had done more than a 10K (6.2 miles) until completing the Disney World Marathon in 2010. He has run the Boston Marathon (four times), the New York City Marathon and Chicago Marathon.
His personal best is 3 hours, 46 seconds in Boston in 2015.
“We gauge everyone off weekly mileage, and I would say he has at least doubled that in the last four years,” said J.P. Royston, who runs with Scivally as part of Track Shack’s MarathonFest program. “He is excellent at keeping a well-balanced life. I don’t know if he manages to fit in sleep, but he gets in everything else.”
Scivally, a married father of three, never has run a marathon overseas. He would like to run Berlin, London and — if he is really adventurous — Tokyo.
The quest to drop his best marathon time below three hours propels him past every mile marker during training.
Wherever it may be.
“I don’t know that you can describe what the runner’s high is, but it is definitely commitment, discipline, accomplishment,” Scivally said. “Another thing is, it didn’t impact family life. It is not golf. It’s not tennis. Cycling would probably be my first choice, given free time, but it has to be done during daylight.
“(Running) fits. It is fun, and it is strangely social. Most of my runs finish before 7:30 in the morning, and I’m done.”
Not to mention running can provide its own travel rewards.
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