I Dream of Kona…

Happy new year!

I’ve been away over Christmas, and a few things of note have happened…

1) I’ve grown a beard. It’s a bit of a rubbish beard, but it’s my beard and I like it. It’s good in the current weather (cold and windy) as it keeps my face warm.

2) I’m trying out being Vegan. Yeah… more on that in a moment.

Combine these things and you get a comment from my brother:

“So, at this present time you are a bearded, vegan ultra distance runner – Nice!”

Oh what have I done?

On Beards:

I didn’t bother to shave while I was on holiday, the beard had just reached a nice level of softness when I was due back to work so I decided to tidy it up a bit and see what kind of reaction I got on return to the office, comments were positive. Though one guy’s started referring to me as Scruff. Another said it made me look much older, but I was pleased to be able to respond “At least I’m young enough not to have to worry about looking older”.

It stays, for now, and I’d like to keep it until I go skiing again in March, see if I can get one of those good frozen ice beards you see photos of…

Ice beard from RealMenRealStyle.com

On Veganism:

My brother read Born to Run and decided to have a go at Vegan January (starting 3^rd January as there was curry and stuff to be eaten first!) I have tried being vegan in the past and didn’t make it past breakfast (so I’ve not been vegan at all then!) but I thought I’d give it another go, partly in support of Stephen’s efforts, partly because I thought that with two of us going for it, it would be easier, moral support and all that.

I did just find myself sniffing an open packet of cookies; it’s not that much easier!

I did also fail yesterday; when I went to get a baked potato with beans they were out of baked potatoes and all the veggie options had at least some cheese on them, so rather than go hungry I went for the least cheesy option. This is going to be the strategy from now on:

“Iain’s Vegan Guidelines”

• Where possible, go Vegan.
• Where no vegan option is available, what is the most vegan? E.g. what has the least cheese on it, what’s the leaset meaty animal to eat? In general the process will be something like this:
  • Vegetables < Cheese/Dairy < Fish < Chicken/Birds < All other animals.
• If someone cooks for me, I will eat whatever they provide (except Mushrooms, they’re spawn of Satan (unless my niece Emily reads this – Emily, Mushrooms are lovely))
• If I feel I’m not recovering from training sufficiently, or I find there is an issue that I can relate directly to this diet, it stops
• If I don’t find any issues with it I will not become some kind of evangelical vegan. Hopefully.
• I will not become a full time Vegan unless this radically changes my life; I don’t think I could cope with trying to eat out or go on holiday with people!

Pre-V-Day I did attempt to consume all the animal products in the flat that couldn’t be frozen, this included possibly the finest creation since someone said “Hey, here’s a bagel”: The Duck and Bacon Bagel. It’s all kinds of awesome. Once I’m done with Veganism I’ll have another, and it will include cheese. There will be photos… watch this space

Actually, you can stop watching this space for now, it’s going to be a little while.

Bye.

So there we go. First comment of 2012. At some point in the not too distant future I’m going to finally put up my IronMan UK race report; it’s written, I just need to read it through and make it seem less dull, perhaps I’ll put a picture of a sparrow in there, or some random hyperlinks. Get excited.