Good morning friends. Sorry for the radio silence the past week or so. Life, especially the part outside of running, has been beyond busy. Running is going well. I ran a fairly hard ten miles on Saturday in 1:34 by myself. I love love love running with friends, but I find I push myself harder when I am alone. It is thunderstorm season here in green country and the last two nights have been noisy ones, upsetting both the kids and the dogs at various times, which in turn wakes me up. Soooooo...instead of running this morning I wanted to talk to you guys.
Today, May 1, 2012, marks my one year anniversary of becoming a vegetarian. Man, that title, "vegetarian" still sounds weird to me. I think I prefer plantstrong. Vegetarians to me growing up were always this militant brigade of angry mobs throwing paint on people. (social stigmas at its best, I suppose) Actually, I prefer "No Meat Athlete" thanks to Matt over at, you guessed it,
nomeatathlete. Seriously, if it weren't for Matt, Susan, and Ben over there I doubt I would have even given this a shot, so to them I say THANKS. They are non-preachy, friendly folks who answer questions and do awesome things like qualify for Boston and complete Ironmans. I also want to publicly thank LaDonna, a friend from church. She has been vegan for several years and has been a wealth of information, encouragement and recipes. Thanks, LD.
Anyway. Last year I had been reading and scouring the Internet. I had watched the documentaries, read the books, and found the blogs. So with a simple facebook post, I declared May to be "Meatless May". Two friends even joined me on my veggie experiment (thanks Alyson and Heather)! It was a great way for me to dip my toe in the water. On one hand, I got the extreme "shock" to my system of dropping meat out of my diet, but on the other hand I made only a small time commitment. It was perfect. (When June hit, I saw no reason to go back to meat eating, I had no desire for it.)
I won't rehash the whole month, or even this whole past year, but I do want to share a couple of thoughts.
Have I been "perfect" and not had ANY meat in the last year? NO. But I can count the times on one hand. I really, truly don't miss meat. I don't have an extreme testimony, I didn't lose 200 pounds, become tan and win a body building competition. BUT, I did knock 27 minutes off my half marathon PR, my knees don't hurt anymore and I am hardly ever sore even though I am able to run much more often than before. And those things, to me as a runner, are super awesome. I know it is the least useful statement possible, but here it is anyway. I JUST FEEL BETTER.
I have made new friends and found a generally nice and encouraging community of not only herbivores, but herbivores who are incredible endurance athletes. My family doesn't seem to mind too much either. My family still eats meat, but much less so since I am the main cook, and it has been okay.
So where do I go from here? What I really want to say is that I am now a total vegan. But that's scary to me. Scary, in that, I'm not sure if I can do it. I've tried before and failed miserably, usually within a couple of days.
I am a self professing cheese addict and so many of my meals have dairy in it, in one form or the other. But I also know, that I really want to TRY it and see if there is a notable difference in the way I feel and my running performance. I know I have a sensitive tummy, and I suspect cutting out dairy would be a positive step.
So what better way to explore the next step than to repeat last year's little experiment, but this time with dairy? So, for me, and any of you who may want to join, I am declaring May to be dairy free. Maybe, you want to make May, meat free? Or drop red meat, or whatever it may be that you have been curious about and not sure you could do long term. Let's give it a month. A mini commitment. We can do that. (Tell me in the comments if you plan to play along and give up dairy or something else entirely.)
As for me, it looks like this week is going to end up as a step back in mileage week. I will try to post tomorrow about April goals and what May has in store, but until then...
Happy Running.
