A Vegetarian in Cowtown

Yesterday, I felt kinda dizzy coming out of the elevator at the office.  Today, I felt light-headed during my run and had to take some extra walking breaks.  Then it hit me - my diet this week has been far from balanced.

I've been "on the road" for over a month now, and I've been doing my best to make sure I get enough protein and iron in my diet which can be tricky without meat and without my own kitchen.  It's even harder in Alberta.  Conservative Alberta, home of big oil and big cattle farms, doesn't really have vegetarianism on it's radar.  I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise then, when one of the catered lunches at work this week included giant beef lasagnas for the meat-eaters, and quite literally a box of lettuce for me.  (I revolted and went out to buy my own lunch, but the best I could find in a limited time was a veggie sandwich with extra cheese at Subway).   I'm heading out to buy some iron supplements this afternoon, and some extra nuts to snack on between meals at work.   7 more sleeps til I'm back in my own kitchen!

Despite the light-headedness, I got my long run in this morning, but it wasn't pretty.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job, but working for a non-profit also means doing things on the cheap!  We've been staying in Olds and driving into Calgary (a little over an hour away), leaving at 7:40 am, eating dinner in Calgary after work and then driving back out to Olds, arriving after 9 pm.  Those are long days.  Oh, and did I mention there are 11 of us staying in a house in Olds?  And I've been getting up to go running before the drive into the city.  Needless to say, I was feeling exhausted before I even started, despite my "sleep in" to 8am.

The first few kilometers I could feel something in my shoe, so my first stop was to remove a little pebble that had wiggled its way in there.  Then I ran out of water, so I made another detour and stop into a mini-mall to get to the water fountain.  It was around the 14K mark that I started to feel a bit woozy, and started taking 30 second walk breaks every kilometer.  I felt better after the first walk break, but didn't want to push it.  At 19K, I just felt frustrated and decided to call it a day.  I walked back to the hotel where I was staying for the night, feeling defeated.

By the time I got to my room, I was really beating myself up.  I knew there was only one way to feel better - so I took a Gu, then headed down to the fitness room in the hotel to do another 5K on the treadmill, completing my 24K/15 mile run for the day.

Now I'm off to get me some sort of protein-ous lunch.  Bring on the free-run eggs!