Christmas really is a shit time to go vegan…

I promise, the above headline is not just for the clickbait.

It’s been an interesting week. Off running whilst my leg heals up, an MRI yesterday on my knee, and a lot of time to catch up on a whole bunch of work and think about what my plans and goals are for 2020.

First: the positives.

An appointment with my GP and a referral for an MRI doesn’t sound very positive, but the catch up was definitely time well spent.

I wasted no time in telling my doctor that the reason for my hobbling into his office was primarily his fault. By which I meant if I hadn’t had the cholesterol diagnoses back in July, I would never have taken up running, I would never had done that 4 kilometre run in Canberra, and I certainly wouldn’t have found myself at the starting line of a race some 350kms away from home on a Sunday morning in early November. All of which led directly to my leg issues and the reason why I was in the doctor’s surgery in the first place. So yeah, his fault.

We talked about my medication for a while and my diet changes and how I was going overall and after we did, he suggested that when it comes time to get a new meds prescription, we hold off, do some blood work and see where my cholesterol is with a view to have 6 months off meds before testing again.

This was music to my ears – the entire point of the changes I’ve made was to not have to medicate for the rest of my life. To potentially be there within 6 months is an awesome result – but it doesn’t mean I can just go back to my old lifestyle, this has to be a forever thing.

Which brings me nicely to 2020 goals.

My less than stellar showing in Armidale last weekend has brought up quite the silver lining – my resolve.

First thing’s first – I’m going back to Armidale next year for the run, some unfinished business up that way.

Secondly, my original plans for the next 12 months have changed significantly. I still want to do a few 5km races, at least one 10km race, but I’ve also earmarked the Central Coast Half Marathon in just over 12 months time as my first attempt at that distance. This brings forward my plans by about 12 months.

The reason for that is because I’d like to start looking at other (read: longer) distances for 2021, including more trail runs. There’s a great 25km trail run along Main Range in Kosciuszko National Park that I’m dead keen on taking part in – and 2021 is staring me in the face. My WSET diploma should be finished by that point (barring any failed exams of course) so that year is becoming key to start to really explore where I want to take this running thing.

Alright, time to address the elephant in the room.

No, the above headline is not clickbait – I’m going vegan for at least the next few months and who knows after that.

My diet is largely plant-based these days anyway, so it’s not a big step to go further – but it takes a lot more commitment that to move from mostly plant-based to only plant-based.

But the real question here is why? It’s not an ethical, ideological or moral decision. I don’t really care about other people’s choices and I’m not going to be imposing my reasons on anyone. Frankly, that’s not my style anyway, but I’m just not militant about it. I understand why others are, and that’s cool for them, it’s just not me.

So, then why?

It’s actually linked to everything mentioned above. I really want to see how far I can go with my running and something I keep coming across over and over and over again is simply how many athletes, performing at their peak performance and at a not dissimilar age that I am, are “plant-powered”. I’m reading about people like Rich Roll, arguably one of the fittest men on the planet today who, at 50 something, is still competing in Ultraman competitions. He competed in his first at around my age and before that was an recovering alcoholic and eating more cheeseburgers than chia seeds. His story is amazing and compelling.

But there are more athletes who eat a plant-based diet – across the entire sporting landscape, both professional and non-professional (and a lot of runners) – and I just can’t shake the feeling that there must be something to this. So I’m becoming my own experiment, not that focus groups of one are a great idea, but I just want to see what comes of it.

Add into that my desire to keep my health issues at bay, my weight back to where it should be and the decision to give it a shot became a no-brainer.

But, as the title says, Christmas is a shit time to go vegan. Even more so when you’ve got family coming up who most certainly aren’t vegan (and even within the household, it’s just me that’s doing this). Finding recipes, or even making my own, around Christmas to suit others as well as my own requirements is not going to be an easy task. Likely what will happen is we’ll do something for me and something for others. Given my less than militant nature about this, I’m pretty ok with that.

So I don’t know what will come from it, longer term, but I’m giving it a go, looking at the data that comes, and then making a judgement about it all later. I have an idea about how I expect it will end up, but I’m not letting that cloud it – I’ll look at things objectively come February/March or so.

That brings us pretty much up to date with my week. I have some recipes and wine tasting notes to write up over the next couple of weeks and I’m hoping to test some Christmas ideas over the coming little while as well – with a view to put everything up here. One thing I will say, I have zero intention for this to become a ‘vegan’ blog, but naturally a lot of the recipes I post will likely be plant-based in the future.

This blog has taken a few left turns this year as my life has done – but hopefully some structure is coming back as the year trickles down to a close.