Words to Live By, from a Small Bear

Some of my favourite quotes come from a book about a very wise and simple bear, Winnie the Pooh.

'Promise me you'll always remember: you're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think'

It was this particular quote, spoken by Christopher Robin to a trepidatious Pooh, that I held in my mind as I sat in a realtor's office in the French town of Narbonne last week, signing a 3-year lease on an apartment that will become my new home on May 1st. I was doing my best to understand the pages and pages of French terms and conditions while trying to remember the long list of questions that the website Just Landed: A guide to Housing and Rentals in France said I should ask before signing, while also trying to understand whether I was eligible to rent property in France at all given that I am not a resident and have no revenues in the country. Since they let me sign, took my deposit from me and gave me keys, I assume that I am.

Those who've been following my blog for a while now will know it's no secret that Switzerland is not a land I am enamored with. It's a beautiful country with much to offer, but there have been one too many aspects that, while fun to make fun of, have meant that I've never quite felt it's a place I want to call home. It's not just about the lack of vegan-friendly food, really it's not. There are a multitude of factors that led to the decision to move on, and the one year mark seemed as good a time as any to pull the plug. And I suppose that yes, everything being smothered in Gruyere hasn't helped.

The decision to leave Swtizerland is accompanied with a second, more difficult decision. On May 1st, Michael and I will part ways. He is heading north to Munich to pursue an MBA, and I am heading south to pursue my dream of assimilating into French culture in a quiet corner of the country and, with a little time, holding my own in a passionate French sidewalk cafe debate.

When I set off on a road trip last week to find a new place to call home with nothing but a Michelin map, a Lonely Planet guide and a print out of a list of every triathlon club from from Nice to Toulouse to guide my route, one voice in my head was telling me 'this is crazy' while the other rejoined 'it's the things that you didn't do, not the things you did do, that you'll regret most when you look back on your life'. Over the din of those bickering voices, I kept reminding myself of Christopher Robin's words to Pooh as I drove from east to west, from town to town, looking for something that I couldn't quite articulate but that I hoped I would recognise when I found it.

I can't deny that it doesn't complicate things when looking for a place to live when you are a) vegan, b) training for an Ironman, c) know nobody and d) can only conjugate verbs in the present tense of the local language. To take care of (a), I had decided that being able to find a decent selection of vegan-friendly places to eat and shop is near the top of my criteria list, and having people to train with would take care of (b) and (c) in one shot. I'm hoping that said people will be kind and patient as I overcome (d).

I passed through dusty Provence with high hopes I might find some of what I was looking for in the region to it's west, Languedoc. Languedoc is a bit like Provence, only a little greener and less overrun by the English renovating farmhouses in droves. It's a region of vineyards, lakes, gorges, tiny villages, antique shops and slow-moving trains. The coastline is considerably less populated than the Cote d'Azur, and with my own eyes I saw miles of white sandy beaches with no waterfront development whatsoever (this seems to be a well-kept secret of France, so please don't tell anybody).

When I drove into the town of Narbonne on my second to last day, I had a seen a lot of pretty towns, met a lot of charming people, but had not found one locale that had that je-ne-sais-quoi that I was looking for. I knew that Narbonne had a triathlon club, but I also thought that at a population of 50,000, it was going to be too big to have the French quaintness I was looking for.

Was I ever wrong. I arrived on market day, and the long canal that runs through the heart of the town was lined with fruits, vegetables, pottery, antiques and designer clothing knockoffs. The market, it turns out, is an extension of a large daily covered market that runs every day - a whole covered area serving an overwhelming selection of fruits and vegetables, not to mention mountains of olives, right in the heart of the town...

I was already in love.

When the third vendor engaged me in friendly conversation about where I was from and what I was doing in Narbonne, I was sold. Then I walked through the heart of the old town - narrow streets, a beautiful old cathedral, boutique stores. Hang on, I should just stop describing and post some pictures (the lazy blogger's solution):

The Main Square:

The Canal:

An old town street:


The Cathedral:

Where I'll be buying my shoes:


And last but certainly not least, one of the best outdoor Olympic size swimming pools I've ever seen:


I proceeded to wander into realtor office after realtor office, asking if they had any one bedroom apartments, and I stammered through my long list of criteria (must have balcony or terrace, must not smell like backed up plumbing - so common in older buildings in the south of France). On the seventh time, I got lucky beyond my wildest dreams and was prepared to pay just about anything for the light and airy old town apartment on a pedestrianized street with a new bathroom, new kitchen, terrace and over-height ceilings. Again, luckily, it was in my price range and I thus found myself signing papers and handing over a deposit the very next morning.

So there we have it. I am actually going to live in France. One chapter is drawing to a close for me and another one is just beginning, and all it took to make it happen was a roadtrip and a bit of gusto.

I'm reminded that it is sometimes the thought of doing something scary that is more scary than the doing, and fear of the unknown seems to diminish when you embrace the unknown and pull it close. I think Pooh knew this, too:

Piglet: "Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were underneath it?"

"Supposing it didn't," said Pooh after careful thought.

Piglet was comforted by this.

And No Myserty

I have been procrastinating about doing the research on why my iron levels are improving as a vegan out of fear that it would take me down a rabbit hole of industry-sponsored research and perpetuated misinformation from arcane sources (as my dairy products research did). My job was done for me yesterday when, at kilometer 95 of a 135 km ride, my friend Amy suggested a straightforward and, it turns out, veritable explanation. Amy has a background in nutrition, and her suggestion left me immediately feeling foolish for thinking that there needed to be anything more complicated or ground-breaking than the following: there is plenty of iron in plants. Except that this was somehow ground-breaking to me: I thought (and had been told by my doctor) that the amount of bioavailable iron in plant sources came a very distant second to that found in animal products, measure for measure.

It turns out this is not entirely true.

The RDA for iron is 15 mg/day for pre-menopausal women (or 10 mg/day for adult men and for post-menopausal women).

Here's a quick profile of the amount of iron in the foods I eat in a typical day:

As part of my homemade granola:
1/2 cup of oats 4mg
1/2 cup bran 6mg
2 TB almonds 1.3mg
2 TB pumpkin seeds 2.5mg

As part of a typical lunchtime salad:
3 cups spinach 6mg
1/4 cup dried figs 2mg
1/2 cup beats 1.4mg
4 TB sunflower seeds 2.4mg

As part of a mid-afternoon homous dip:
4 tbs tahini 2.4mg
100g chickpeas 3.1mg
1/2 cup broccoli florets 0.6mg

As part of an evening curry:
1/2 cup lentils 3.2mg
4 TB cashew nuts 2.0mg
1/2 cup potato 1.4mg
1/2 cup green beans 0.6mg

So on an average day, I am getting around 38.9mg of iron which, as those who have been paying attention so far will have noticed, is more than double my RDA. If I ate tofu (hard to find in Switzerland), I'd be getting an extra 13.2 mg per cup. As a comparison of the plant world against the animal world, 1 medium (144 g) grilled steak contains 4.3mg of iron.

One note on the bioavailabiity of plant sources of iron: in isolation, the body does not absorb plant sources of iron as well as it does the iron found in meat. However, by including foods containing vitamin C at each meal (like citrus fruits, fruit juices, berries, tomato, capsicum, broccoli and cabbage), the level of iron absorption from plant sources is increased to a level very similar to that of meat.

Having done this little tally after today's rather epic ride (I forgot to mention: the 135 kms included one 20 km 1,100m climb), I also found the scientific data I was hoping to find without too much trouble: there are indeed some (non-industry sponsored) studies that show that typical eating patterns of vegetarians indicate they actually consume more iron than meat eaters, and that vegans actually eat the most iron of all (Virginia Messina, M.P.H., R.D., and Mark Messina, Ph.D., Crown, 1996).

So there is nothing particularly mysterious about my improved iron stores. And those extra stores came in handy on that climb today.

No Picnic

I simply have to post some extracts from an email I received from the Tour de Mont Blanc this morning. I'm sure that some of their intended meanings have been lost in translation, but that aside, they have some rather strict rules that make North American ultras look like an unsupervised Sunday picnic. I can't believe they are going to weigh my bag at the exit of aid stations, and I'm not sure why I would need to carry a needle and thread with me; perhaps for some self-administered sutures?

The email opens with:

"Our regulations are precise in all imaginable dimensions: the ultra-trails in the mountains are difficult races. You must be totally aware of the difficulties of the event before leaving, be autonomous, know how to deal with difficult climatic conditions, not to cry when you fall, and it is not the role of the volunteers to deal with muscle pain, digestive problems or any other minor aches and pains. As we’ve said it is an adventure. It is not an organised trip but a race. We must therefore concentrate our efforts on the quality of the assistance. "

I think this means that their budget for medical assistance has been reduced. It continues:

We have altered a certain number of regulations. This is the same for everybody, whether you be in front or behind, large or small, man or woman. Read carefully, because the adventure starts here.

1. One back-pack only for the entire course

Tagged at the distribution of race bibs, your pack will faithfully follow you everywhere. Its weight must be a minimum of 2 kg, including at least 1 litre of water. It will be necessary to have this weight at the exit of all of the refreshment points, where there will be controls. The weight of the pack must never be less than 1kg at any point in the race.

2. Under the benevolent eye of the volunteers

As in previous years, the volunteers are there to help you, but also to make sure that the rules are respected by everybody. Amongst them the GCV (‘kind flying stewards’) have precise orders to follow, notably that which concerns the immediate application of time penalties when the rules are not respected.

3. The obligatory equipment is obligatory

It is obvious, but you must at all times be carrying your obligatory equipment yourself. Question of security, and once again, to be fair vis-à-vis the other contestants.

Obligatory material:

• personal cup or tumbler 15cl minimum

• stock of water minimum 1 litre,
• two torches in good working condition with replacement batteries,
• survival blanket,
• whistle,
• adhesive elastic band enable making a bandage or a strapping (mini 80cm x 3 cm),
• food reserve,
• protective raincoat for bad mountain weather,
• running trousers or leggings (au minimum pedal pushers covering the knees),
• cap or bandana.
• Required by the frontier police forces: identity papers

Very strongly recommended:

• mobile phone with option enabling its use in the three countries (put in one’s repertoire the security numbers of the organisation, do not hide one’s number and do not forget to set off with recharged batteries)
• gloves, warm clothes indispensable in the case of cold weather forecasts

Advised (list not definitive):

• telescopic sticks
• change of clothing
• compass
• knife
• string
• sunscream
• vaseline
• anti-overheating cream
• needle and thread

I can see this is not going to be like the as-long-as-everyone-crosses-the-finish-line-upright-we-don't care-how-you-got-there attitude of ultrarunning in North America. I am certainly glad that there will be some Kind Flying Stewards on hand, because I am already feeling some mild anxiety over what I have to keep in mind when my brain is a little starved of oxygen five hours into the event.

One to Watch

I just came across this individual, the first vegan to compete in the invite-only Ultraman Hawaii (a 3-day/320 mile double-Ironman distance triathlon):

http://www.richroll.com/

He clocked the second fastest swim split and finished 10th overall, all on six months of training. He's also a father of four, an attorney, a filmmaker and a writer. Who says men can't do more than one thing at a time? The Marathon de Sables (6 day 151 mile run across the Sahara Desert) and Badwater (135 mile run across Death Valley) are both on his race list this year and I'll be watching his results.

In my humble little world, I am excited to report that the Tour de Mont Blanc organizing committee has officially accepted me into the 50km ultramarathon this year. It looks some persuasion, in the form of many emails back and forth concerning a race I won last year which I requested be added to the list of qualifying races. With a name like 'Walk in The Park', a 50km ultra in a Canadian interior town called 'Kamloops', I can't blame them for thinking I was making it up.

I love how the French language lends itself so well to exasperated arguing, even by email: "mais je l'ai gangé, je l'ai gagné' (but I won it, I won it!) I pleaded many times. They finally checked the race's website and contacted the race director, and have accepted it as a qualifying race and have accepted me into this year's event in August. This means I will be running a very mountainous 50km event 5 weeks before my first Ironman; perhaps not what a coach would advise me to do, but I don't have a coach so I'm doing it. I'm sure Rich Roll would agree.

And the results are in!

I had my 'email appointment' with the very sunny Dr. Albert today (how British GP practices have leapt into the 21st century!), and he was pleased to inform me that my blood tests were nothing but good news. I have no signs of anemia whatsoever, and most interestingly, my serum ferritin (measure of stored iron) is higher than it's been in the last 4 years at 31.2 ug/L. As a reminder, I've been getting my haem and ferritin levels tested since I started running seriously 4 years ago, and the latter has always been dismally low (9 ug/L at it's lowest, 19 ug/L at it's highest in spite of eating as much lean meat as I could ingest, and also supplementing with cocktails of ferrous gluconate, ferrous fumerate and liquid iron). Even more remarkable, I took this test at the end of a month where I quadrupled my riding volumes and right at the end of 7 consecutive running days in Cyprus.

No one could be more delighted with this news than me, although Dr. Albert comes a close second. He enthusiastically instructed me to 'keep up the spinach!' Proving the power of the psychosomatic, I suddenly feel exceptionally energized and am wondering what I should do with these extra stores of iron. I think I might up my running volumes. And needless to say, I am now going to feverishly research a possible explanation for how I have achieved greater levels of stored iron as a vegan than at any time in my meat-eating past. Since 20% of the female population are struggling to do the same, I feel a mild delusion of grandeur that I might be on the cusp of something big.