Hell hath frozen over

I'm going vegan.

As in: No bacon. No happy cow (because as Peter @ Counterbalance sez "Jill, cows are only happy when they aren't SLAUGHTERED."). No tasty chicken and avocado. But more than brown rice. More than a salad once or twice a week. The House Where Veggies Come To Rot will now become a veggie sanctuary.

A few comets collided the past few weeks to come to this decision. I haven't been able to eat much variety the past 3 months since I've been on such a restricted diet to heal my belly. My blood test last week showed that I'm anemic in the Bs and folate, plus my Hashimoto's thyroid fun is back. I've been on a host of supplements and digestive enzymes to try and boost nutrient absorption, but as my head's been telling me....there must be a better way. My coworker's husband is vegan and she suggested looking into some of that cooking as a way to put some variety into my meals so I picked up a book that turned out to be a revelation.

It's called "Thrive" and is written by a former Ironman PRO who's been vegan almost 15 years. The background of his book talks all about stress and its impact on immunity and general health, whether sports or work-induced, plus the nutritional stress that we put on our body from not giving it exactly what it needs to function and recover. This book was showing me that the veggies would come with their own enzymes for my belly and the seeds and pseudograins would charge through with their own mini-booster rockets, all of it allergy-free and gut-happy, ready for my body to soak up. Hearing this from one athlete to another, after just one chapter it...all....made....sense. The author has a 12 week menu plan that I'm going to follow with all kinds of recipes that are actually quite amazing. I'm treating this like a coaching plan, except it all revolves around FOOD! So this weekend I headed down to PCC with Kermit and we loaded up our bag with 45# of vegan goodness (ok 7# of that was a bike lock) including......KALE!!. I spent the next 6 hours playing in the kitchen doing all sorts of cooking and soaking and whirring and dish washing that I'd never in my life done before. It was so fun! And through it all sat little Momo next to his dish wondering why Mom was in the kitchen but not prepping his own dinner.



My other big life epiphany: I've come to accept that getting healthy is my focus for the year, whether it means racing or not. The only way I raced last year was from vitamin doping and this year I've pledged to heal up au natural. It's been a huge process for me to accept this, but once I came to peace with it a huge burden was lifted from my shoulders. I was nearly suffocating from the fact that I may never get healthy enough to feel the adrenaline in the pack again or the power that can emerge from within. It's the high that ragged junkies look for on dark city streets, but under the guise of colorful kits and fine-tuned race machines. Instead, I'm working to broaden my empire and to enjoy living even when it's not cloaked in adrenaline. To live slower yet still keep my mind entertained and creative. I start my first art class in 3 weeks. It's on Tuesday nights so while everyone else is at Fast Track training I'll be sitting in front of my drawing paper training a whole new part of me.