Half Marathon in Ottawa

The Vegan Cow Half Marathon Ottawa — Connected in Motion

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.”

Solving the Stray Cat & Dog Problem

Every summer in Canada it seems like we have a huge problem with stray cats and dogs on our city streets. Every year the humane societies receive more animals than they can help.

Currently, we see a poor cat or dog on the street and feel obliged to help out – since they can’t help themselves. We collect these poor animals and take them to the humane society, which does not have the resources to provide for them all. As such, many will be euthanized anyways and be of no use to humans.

Rather than taking them all to these shelters, what if we send them all to a farm. A farm where they can get all the food and water their bodies can handle. The one’s that grow the fastest we can continue to breed, since after all they are the most useful. Yes some will get sick and die off, but that’s life.

The females we can use to produce milk. Yuk – cat milk is gross you might say. Given a little bit of time, the scientists can add hormones, antibiotics, and other delicious food enhancers – like colour – to make the milk taste just like cows milk – which is obviously more natural.

Since these once stray cats and dogs are now farm animals, they don’t have any rights. Perfect! Now we can start turning this problem into a billion dollar industry by breeding them, selling them, turning them into food and clothing. The faster we can breed these cats and dogs, the more money we make. Some may argue that we shouldn’t have the right to breed cats and dogs just to sell off as commodities. Well, I made these cats and dogs so I have the right to do whatever I want. After all they would have never existed in the first place if it wasn’t for me and my modern breeding techniques.

The beautiful thing about this solution is it converts those useless stray animals that roam our streets and go through our trash into something beneficial to us humans. Cat and dog lovers may reject this idea, but unfortunately for them humans are higher up on the food chain – and we all need our protein right?

Now if you think that this whole “solution” is ridiculous and down right cruel, I couldn’t agree with you more. However, the whole idea is not nearly as far fetched as you may think. When you replace cat and dog with cow and pig you have factory farming. Cat and dog equals cruel and inhumane, while cows and pigs in the same scenario equals billions of dollars in profits.

“Moving towards a world in which we love and respect all animals the way we love our pets”

My Visit to the Wishing Well Sanctuary

Wishing Well Sanctuary Bradford Ontario — Olivia diggin’ deep in that hay

On Saturday March 29^th I had the great pleasure of visiting the Wishing Well Sanctuary in Bradford (45 minutes north of Toronto) Ontario. It is the newest farm sanctuary in Ontario at only two and a half years old, yet you’d never know it by the number of animals loving life here. The Wishing Well Sanctuary is more than a safe haven for neglected farm animals – it’s an oasis of discovery and development, repose and renewal, centre for personal growth, inner peace, healing and joy.

For me, it was the first time since I was a child to get that close to a cow. I kind of forgot how big they really are – yet so kind and gentle at the same time. Fun fact about cows: Did you know cows have best friends and become stressed if they are separated?

Millie at Wishing Well Sanctuary Bradford Ontario — I suspect this isn’t Millie’s first taste of denim

In addition to the cows – everybody in the tour was able to meet and interact with the chickens, goats, sheep, donkeys, bunnies, horses, pigs and even a llama. To learn more about the animals living on the Wishing Well Sanctuary check out their bios here. Or better yet, you can visit the farm on the last Saturday of each month.

What I really admired about the Wishing Well Sanctuary is they are very focused on education and awareness. They have an on-site class room dedicated to humane education.
“Humane educators don’t tell students which choices to make, but they teach them that their choices matter.” – Zoe Weil

Learn more about Wishing Well Sanctuary education programs here.

Wishing Well Farm Sanctuary Bradford Ontario — Ashli at the Wishing Well Sanctuary

All in all I’d like to thank Brenda, her team of volunteers, and the animals for all being so open and inviting us all into their homes. I’d highly recommend you check out the sanctuary for yourself – tours are $10 by donation. If you can’t make it to the sanctuary you can donate, volunteer, buy some merchandise, sponsor an animal or just share their information to your friends – all from wishingwellsantuary.org. Every little bit helps.

5 Food Documentaries Worth Watching

A big part of my conversion to the vegan lifestyle was due to some great documentaries that showed me what I was buying, eating and supporting. Here are five documentaries (in no particular order) that I think you will find very educational, and hopefully influential.

Forks Over Knives

Argues that most, if not all chronic diseases could be prevented or reversed by eating a whole foods plant based diet.

Vegucated

Follows 3 meat loving people as they eat a vegan diet for 6 weeks and learn about the hidden secrets of animal agriculture.

Peaceable Kingdom – The Journey Home

Follows farmers as they change their beliefs and attitudes towards animal farming and what they are doing to animals, as well as animal welfare rescuers as they work to save animals.

Earthlings

Very graphic documentary that looks at humans use of animals as pets, food, clothing, entertainment and for scientific research.

Gary Yourofsky Speech on Veganims

Though not a documentary – it is a great speech that will probably make you rethink your relationship to animals.

What about the protein for a vegan athlete?

Without a doubt the most common question I get. I think it’s fair since it was the biggest issue I had when converting to a plants based diet. The last thing for me to give up converting from vegetarian to vegan was whey protein powder.

As we all know the food you put in your mouth is what fuels your body day in and day out. So I had my doubts as to whether I was giving my body everything it needed to recover from a hard workout. To be honest, I can’t really say yes or no with 100% confidence, though I feel very strongly that I do.

I think the problem most people have is similar to this. Take Person A (the vegan) and compare them to Person B (meat eater) and put them through the exact same training program over the course of 1 year. Who’s stronger at the end of the year?

To that answer I really don’t know. But I think there’s a problem with the question. I think it should be who’s healthier? Again I could not say with 100% confidence – though there are people on both sides of the fence who would say with 100% certainty that it’s Person A or Person B. For me, that’s not the point.

Here’s how I break down the whole issue on sufficient amounts protein. Whether I would or would not be stronger adding the occasional chicken breast to my diet (or salmon as everyone suggests), that’s not really the point. The medical studies are very conflicting on this subject – so I’ll go with personal experience. This I do know: If you workout – and you eat a balanced plant based diet you will get plenty of protein to make yourself stronger week in and week out.

If you are solely focused on maximum muscle gains after a workout I would suggest taking steroids. Try to find a study that doesn’t prove steroids will make you stronger faster. To that you might argue – but what about the side effects? Interesting! If you still believe there is no relation to meat and dairy consumption and the rapid increase of chronic disease, my only response would be large corporations still have the best PR and Marketing teams money can buy.

The difference between steroid side effects and eating meat 3 times a day for 50 years is the side effects of steroids are well documented and happen fairly quickly. It takes time for people to adjust their beliefs on what was once considered healthy. We all know some 90 something year old person who swears the only reason they are still alive today is because they’ve been smoking all their life.

This article kind of trailed off more into personal benefits vs the real reason why I choose vegan. Which is, even if eating animals did make me slightly stronger and faster I’m fine with that. Sometimes there’s more to life than me.

Whether you agree, disagree or just have something to add – I would love to hear it.