Lenten Running

I have a tradition of giving up meat for lent: it used to be on the basis that alcohol/chocolate would be too easy, and coffee would be too hard (at least on everyone around me). I think these days not all the above statements would be true ... but we'll skite over that remark I think! Last year I didn't give anything up for lent at all because of the marathon training, so this year I decided I will go veggie again for the 40 days (with the dispensation of Laetare Sunday in the middle - which handily falls on the day after the Coniston 14! 

Having struggled a bit in the past with fuelling for running, especially as I've been on a diet for pretty much the last 18 months, I think I'm going to have to plan ahead much better - rather than just stuff my face full of cheese as I might have done in the past! It will help that I'm only giving up meat rather than being a true veggie - so I will still have fish as a good source of protein.  It WON'T help in the slightest that one of my jobs at the moment is in a bacon roll shop! Temptation everywhere.  

In the true manner of an ex-scout, I spent some of yesterday evening going through some recipe books, partly looking for inspiration, but mostly confirming that I can manage the whole running/no meat balance without the cheese binge.  I can't say my favourite Go Faster Food was a huge amount of help - although I guess I can make some of the recipes without the meat, or substituting soya/tofu/quorn.  

Delia Smith of course came to my rescue: her Vegetarian Collection was somewhat my bible in my youthful veggie days (when my mother told me I had to cook for myself because she wasn't going to do veggie food!) My copy still has the handwritten list from about 1999/2000 when it was bought for me, with all the recipes I wanted to try at the time. The only problem is that a lot of them are high fat, but with some tweaks, substitutions, and portion control I think I should get to explore some more gems.

Finally I remembered that I had on a whim purchased Sophie Dahl's Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights which is part food-journal and part recipe book. I'd browsed it some time in a book shop, and enjoyed her diary-style writing so much that I bought the book for that rather than to cook from.  Although SD isn't in fact a veggie, she eats very little meat, and most of the recipes are suitable for pescatarians/vegetarians (and in fact many of the meat recipes have veggie alternatives already suggested).  The recipes are also a little lighter than Deliah in most cases, and mainly written with 2 portions in mind rather than to feed a family - so particularly good for cooking for the fridge!

I will also have to go through some of my (many!) back copies of Runner's World and Women's Running to investigate what they have recipe-wise - although I tend to find lots of cake recipes and skip over some of the more practical ones ... oops!

I will definitely have to plan a bit better with lunches and breakfasts, especially when I am surrounded by the glorious smell of meat (and the fabby home-made sausages) in the shop - although we do also of course have veggie options! Slightly naughtily, I'm quite looking forward to exploring the various cookbooks (I'm not sure you are supposed to be excited about  your lenten fast!), but as I'm about to enter another couple of races to keep my running going, it will be an interesting challenge.

Apologies in advance, that there may well be some food pics appearing on this running blog in the future - but you have been warned!