The Ottawa Race Weekend has come and gone. Though I’m pretty disappointed with my half marathon time of 2 hours and 17 minutes I feel like I learned a lot. Firstly and most importantly, when you stop pushing yourself to get better, you get worse. This was one of my “laziest” winters in recent years and my time reflected that. On top of that my pre-race dinner consisted of half a pizza and 6 beers. Rather than looking at it as a failure, I choose to look at my regression as a minor set back in the grand scheme of things, and look forward to the next few months where I can train a little bit harder to make up for lost time. On the plus, it’s always easier to keep moving when the weather is nice.
The second positive I’ll take from this situation is when I look back a year from now and finish my first Ironman, I’ll be able to see how far I’ve come. From a 2:17 half marathon to completing a full Ironman in a little over a year, those are some big goals, and require some serious dedication. Further, all of my gains in strength and endurance will come from plant based nutrition. People will often read of a pro athlete who gives up meat and will quickly argue that he built all his strength eating meat and now he only has to sustain it. He would not of built that strength in the first place if he wasn’t consuming animal protein. I’m out to prove that ideology is flawed with my strength gains exclusively through a plants based diet.
I will end this article with one of my favourite quotes that is particularly relevant for this article. “Life is not about where you are, it’s where you are going, and more importantly what you are DOING to get there.”
