I like to personally throw giant monkey wrenches into my life. Apparently the ones life throws at me sometimes aren’t just enough.

What are these two monkey wrenches?

#1 – returning to being a vegetarian. For many years, I was a vegetarian that sometimes at seafood until November 2011. I returned to being a full blown carnivore because I was heading to Australia and wanted to be able to eat anything and everything that crossed my path. Oddly enough, I mostly ate the freshest fruits and vegetables available. When I returned from Australia, I thought to myself I’ll remain a carnivore, but I was never truly a carnivore. I was mainly a veggie eater who would on occassion eat meat. I am that way now, but it’s time to return to land of being a full on herbivore. I will so miss you, bacon. My body is begging me to return to being a vegetarian. It doesn’t feel right and healthy. I’m listening to it.

#2 – I am starting my half marathon training on Monday, June 17th. I’m training as a vegetarian runner. Yep, VEGETARIAN RUNNER. Vegetarian easy. Vegetarian runner, no idea if it’s going to be easy for me or if I will make it hard for myself. I know if you’re a reader of this site, you’re thinking, you hate running. I still do. Nothing’s changed on that. I use only running as a cardio method to help me stay fit. No joy. No love. So why in the hell am I doing the Detroit Free Press/Talmer Bank Marathon, Half-Marathon, Relay and 5K…besides having lost my proverbial mind of course? Because I didn’t think I could run a 5K, but I did the Charlotte Checkers 5K and Fun Run. I trained horribly. Hurt every step of the way. Wanted to lay on the road and have the cleaning crew come pick me up, but I finished it with a 41.57 on the chip. I wanted to finish under 45 minutes and I was never happier to see my friend Josh, Woody, Wilson and the Checkers mascot Chubby standing at the finish line cheering me on. Goal accomplished. When I told everyone I was moving to “the D,” my friend Amy sent me a message along the lines of: I’m not going to talk you into this but just consider this idea. Once you get settled, look at this site (link for the race). We should do it. It crosses into international borders. Amy knows me too well…I love to travel and I’ve never been to Canada. Here was a race that would let me visit Canada, okay, run through Canada. I sent her message back, “If I think about it, I’ll talk myself out of it. I’m in. Let’s do this.” That was in December 2012. I committed. I am in. I do not like to let friends down. Besides, I want to prove to myself that I can run a half marathon because as much as I hate running I want to do a marathon. (I don’t understand my mind either.)

I’ll track my training each week in case you are inspired to try it or if you’re just curious as how it will work running on veggies. In case you are wondering if I am just jumping into this with no guide, I am not. I am using the No Meat Athlete Half Marathon Roadmap from No Meat Athlete. Again, I can easily return to being a vegetarian but I want to train smart so this will be my go to guide.

I don’t have a set tim to finish the half marathon. I just want to finish it even if I am military crawling across the finish line.

Listening to “Help Me Lose My Mind” by Disclosure featuring London Grammar