I said I'd painstakingly blog the details of my vegan experiment but I haven't. I think the reason for this is that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. It's not something I really think about too much and hence don't have a lot to say. I find it interesting in itself that there is nothing to report as that demonstrates what a small change it was.

It's now been 5 weeks. My diet is now more simple (mainly due to lack of culinary flair) but much healthier. Typical changes in the diet are;

Breakfast used to consist of toast with eggs and bacon, often a full fry up. Now tends to be just toast with beans and hash browns. I eat more baked beans that when I was a student.
I now tend to run/cycle to work on an empty stomach and eat when I arrive, rather than eat before and after
Lunch used to be Subway, Wasabi (stodgy curry) or pub lunch. Now found a couple of great places. Hummus Bros and Just Falafs (second best pun ever).
Eating and drinking a lot more fruit than normal. Curtousy of innocent and Graze. Drinking less coffee and drinking more water.
Dinner is as usual (rice/pasta/wrap) based with tofu or fake meat instead of meat. Lots more veg than normal
Alcohol absorbing snacks tend to be chips (when I can find a chip shop in London, they are rare) or I just get home and destroy a tube (or 2) of pringles.

It's hard to say whether it's made any difference. I've lost about 6 pounds and to feel a bit lighter. I looked at the photo of me at the start of the GUCR this year and I looked a bit of a porker. I feel a bit better when actually running too. The important thing is that I am a bit more mobile when I'm running as it dawned on me by the end of the GUCR that I was not in a fit state to even finish the Spartathlon within the cut off time.

There are a few times when it is a bit tricky though

I have found eating out hard (resorting mainly to chips when I don't know what to have) and I have relaxed the beer counting. I find it hard to remember all of the beers on that list that I am allowed to have and as soon as I encountered a bar with none in I just went for what everyone else was having.
I have found it difficult when I forget to take food to a race. I usually forget because I am hungover. This happened in the Tanners 30 where I had several tubes of pringles at home and didn't bring any. I could not eat the cake on offer from a friend who made it especially
I'm going to be pretty difficult to cook for in the rare instances where I am invited to be cooked for.
Going abroad is going to be hard. I am off to Switzerland this weekend and am not sure about how I'm going to eat. I obviously need to as I have 49 miles of mountains to run but it will be difficult in a country famed for cheese and meat. (and little knives, clocks and fence sitting)

Other than that everything is all good. Looking forward to a proper kebab in Sparta though.

RunningandStuff