Hi! from an Aussie Trail Running Vegan

Firstly thank you to Veg*Triathlete for the invitation to contribute to the Sporty Vegans Blog! I hope I can be a valuable member of the team and have something worthwhile that I can contribute that will help or inspire people, and perhaps the process of contributing, and reading the thoughts of other vegan athletes, will help and inspire me to be my best also.

Ok, I little about myself is probably the best place to start….

I’m a 30 year old vegan Aussie girl, living on the mid north coast of New South Wales, Australia. I guess I’ve got a pretty extensive sporting resume, having competed in state and national level Road Cycling, then progressing to Triathlon. My time in Triathlon covered more events than I can list here, but most notably, 4 Ironmans (with a PB of 11:42), approximately 25 Olympic Distance, Half Ironman and long course events (with a Half PB of 5:20) and a place on the Age Group Team at the World Duathlon Championships in 2005.

In February 2007 I began exclusively running, after becoming disillusioned with the number of injuries I was continually battling as a triathlete. Running was always my weakest discipline, but the one which I enjoyed the most. I didn’t have any specific plans for some time, simply to be thankful that I could run at all, after having 2 stress fractures in as many years, one of which opened in to a fracture requiring a back slab cast for 6 weeks. So I got myself into a good routine running 4 days a week, for an hour a session. Fast forward to September 2007 and I decided that I needed some goals again, my running was going well and I was injury-free, so I decided to enter two events, the Six Foot Track (www.sixfoot.com), a 45km ultra-marathon held exclusively on trail, and because of my fascination with ultra running, I am planning to compete in The North Face 100 (http://www.thenorthface.com.au/100/).

Now I think I’ll leave it at that for today, that’s quite enough about me, however if anyone has any questions about my vegan diet, racing or training, either for my previous triathlon experience, or my current training as a long distance / trail runner, I’d love to help out!