Right before labor day weekend, my amazing friend came to visit me from San Francisco. It was just going to be a couple days but turned into about a week. By this visit, I had already began training for a half marathon.
Let me back up a couple of years. Monica and I have been friends since 9th grade. Our “training together” relationship started during high school when we juiced together, did swim team together, did cabbage soup diets together, and all that probably not so good for you stuff in the long run. But right after high school was when we both really got into running. In October of 2014, Monica completed her first half marathon and knowing how much she hated running (although literally has a perfect natural stride), she completely inspired me to sign up for one as well. February 2015 was the first Half Marathon i’ve done and it was at the San Francisco Golden Gate Park. The three months of training while in a very demanding semester of design school, taught me exactly why I love the discipline of running. Running is my meditation. It’s uncomfortable. But I’ve always come up with my best ideas and “Aha” moments while running. I completed my second half that March and the years after that I only ran here and there. Fast forward to 2017, having my baby, and trying to run outside again, was crushing. Something I once loved and practiced was now causing me pain and quite honestly i couldn’t run without peeing my pants! It was soul crushing and while others were trying to “push” me, I was fighting a battle internally that only I could understand. Would I ever be able to rebuild that love for running?
So here we are, back to running and feeling great. Monica comes down to LA and tells me when she gets here “I’ve been Vegan and sober since April”. Now this didn’t come across just as a crazy cleanse situation to me because Monica was and is also training for an Iron Man this December in Australia. I mean, pause on that. BADASS! So her being vegan and sober was very calculated in a whole picture kind of way. In other words, LIFESTYLE! Or as she calls it, her “vegan sober bubble”. She wasn’t just cutting out meat and dairy and alcohol and any other recreational shit, she was cutting out toxic relationships. Her relationship with friends, her career, the food on her plate…..She meticulously curated what was going to surround her during this iron man training. She wasn’t comfortable with the idea of contributing to the meat and dairy industry so she cut it out. She didn’t love the day in and day out lethargy she was in in her then current career so she cut it out. And she has never looked happier and overall lighter to me. I realized I had always know Monica as a stressed person but here she was, after ten years of knowing her and she was looking ten years younger!
So anyways, when Monica explained this to me, I simply said “ok! Well I’ll just eat what you’re eating while you’re visiting”. Before I knew it I was having the best veggie burritos and salads and just meals that i’ve had in a while. The cost of groceries went down, and my digestive system seems to really be acclimating. I felt energized to run that first 6 mile run since giving birth to Parker and all of a sudden all the excuses to never become Vegan, just seemed silly.
It’s been over 2 months now. And it’s been much easier than I thought it would be. I also have been sober which is always a weird one to say because when you say the big S word, people assume you were an alcoholic or drug addict before. If you know me you know I was far from that. But cutting out wine and even the green goods has made me focus on letting running be my stress reliever instead of those other things. I' am running the same Half Marathon I did the first time at the Golden Gate park and I am so excited that I am back in love with running. I think having the discipline of eating Vegan and being sober is really guiding this training. I call myself lowercase vegan because I am still not at the place where I introduce myself as a vegan. I prefer to keep it more private on a day to day. But it’s working for me. Ive told myself I can have one day of not being vegan Thanksgiving day. I probably wont have any dairy because I can tell it wont sit well with my tummy but I MIGHT have a little turkey. We will see, Grandma!
If you guys have any questions about my journey or even Monica’s, write a comment below!