I Live in Iowa: Week 118

Updating the blog less than an hour before I go to bed Monday night, sorry, I really do like to write articles the night before they are published. So the week in review shall we gents and ladies?

Work went well, I developed the project I am working on further. Part of me thinks, 'I'm a genius, I'm rocking this project! I might as well phone it in. Seriously, I'm so good at what I do.' The other part of me, experienced through lived failures and problems thinks, 'great, I've spent so much time on this project and I must be missing something. This is far too complicated for me to really understand. No one else has understood it. I'm missing something and it is going to cost us hundreds of thousands.' What is the truth? We will find out, probably before the end of 2013.

Running went well 81 miles including a true trail race, a half marathon that is. It was the inagural Mines of Spain Trail Race and I was second to Scott Gall, a guy that was once 5th in the world in mountain running, a 2:20 marathoner and in the last few years ran a 1:08 half. However, I made him work for it. I thought him being 39 years old he might be on the decline in terms of 4:10 mile speed, yet after leading from 1 mile to about 3.75 he took the lead going into a hill, and wow can he climb! I do not see myself as a particularly strong hill runner, but I'm certainly not slow. The two of us were in front of all of the 5k and 10k runners from 200 meters on despite running a half marathon. In short, once he got about 15 seconds on me, based on my heart rate, I relaxed a little and never really chased. That being said I couldn't see him to chase him and my legs did go anaerobic on three different hills. I also did a short 5x1000 meter workout, on a humid 86 degrees Fahrenheit day, that went better than expected.

Now for what everyone is really interested in, how is being vegan? Well, I'm hungry all the time and I'm tired pretty often. Which is to say, running is going well and I feel normal. Seriously, my tweets today, Monday, August 12th, chronicle all the food I have eaten today, I'm not restricting. If I am hungry I eat something. There is a bit of a challenge finding food. That being said, Saturday night, after the trail half marathon and going rock climbing in the afternoon, we climbers went out to Buffalo Wild Wings, and I had nachos without cheese or meat. Basically chips with lettuce and onions and salsa on the side. Still for one person it was actually filling. The point being, it is possible to go out to eat without creating a scene and still get a fair amount of food.

A vegan diet does cost more than my standard diet. Bread goes at $6 a loaf, soy, almond, and coconut milk is also in the range of $6 a gallon, and I drink at least a liter of milk a day. I drink lattes, which means getting soy milk, which costs $.50-75 more eat time. I spent more time cooking and preparing my food. It takes longer to make rice or quinoa than it does pasta (which I still eat) or grill a steak.

I do feel more lean, less fat even after only 12 days than I did before. It is probably imperceptible to others, and maybe better if they can't see, thus they worry less. Also, sometimes after eating a large steak or huge chunk of fish or milk or ice cream it is common to get a heavy feeling in your stomach, I have not had that feeling in 12 days! I have an iron stomach so it was never really a problem, but all of the sudden I do not have that feeling, and it feels better.

Finally, I did start taking a strait up iron pill Saturday. I have not felt strong all summer, and after hearing of yet another runner getting anemia I decided to bump up my iron intake. After two pills in three days I ran a 1:10:59 12 mile run tonight, which is in short, great! 12 miles at 5:55 pace average far exceeded my expectations, and I still feel good. Especially considering that Saturday I ran a tough half marathon.

The vegan experiment was kind of designed in my head to help me lose a few pounds but hamper my performance and strength, then I had this great medium pace tempo?! I fear this experiment may last longer than the month of August.