October 2020 – Adam runs on plants

Running and Sustainable Fashion: Buying Second-hand Kit

Being a researcher in renewable energy as well as being vegan in part for environmental reasons, I would certainly consider myself to be an environmentalist. But one part of environmentalism I had neglected for a while was sustainable fashion and buying second-hand. I don’t buy a huge amount of clothes as it is, but I’ve definitely been guilty of turning my nose up at the thought of buying second-hand in the past. Buying second-hand means you’re diverting items from potentially going to landfill, as well as avoiding the environmental cost of making new items, with all the raw materials and manufacturing that comes with it.

I’ve made a considerable effort over the past year to buy clothes in a more sustainable way, either by buying from more ethical brands when I do buy new, or buying second hand from sites such as eBay or Depop, and recently I’ve started to apply this to running gear too.

I’m trying to focus on some solutions in this post, rather than just talking about the problem of clothing waste, and there are plenty of great sources for information on the scale of the issue, such as WRAP, clothesaid, and ReRun (for a more running-focussed take).

Some key statistics on UK clothing waste (from ReRun)

When it comes to running kit, not everything is well-suited for the second-hand market; for example, I’m still not that keen on buying used base layers or running tights for hygiene reasons. Socks are another essential item that you’re obviously not buying anything other than brand new. Pretty much everything else is, though, especially jackets, shorts, and tops. I tend not to buy t-shirts (second-hand or otherwise), as (like most runners), I’m slowly building a collection of souvenir race t-shirts, so there’s just not the need to buy any more. There is an ever-growing conversation about the sustainability of souvenir race packs, and many races are now offering opt-outs as a result. The sustainability of races in general is a huge talking point, but that’s beyond the scope of this post (maybe for a later one…).

With summer drawing to a close and the cold, dark winter months creeping in, I needed some new running gear that was either warm, reflective or both. I decided to put my money where my mouth is, resist the urge to buy fancy new kit and look for some second-hand steals.

Running Kit

I went looking for jackets and a pair of shorts, and ended up pretty happy with what I found:

I got this great Nike dri-fit jacket on Depop, for only £24 from red cactus vintage. I’m not sure on the exact style, so couldn’t find it online, but the current Nike Windrunner series look very similar, and they’re going for £70 new, so £24 is a pretty good deal. It’s warm enough for cold mornings whilst still being lightweight, it’s also practical with a hood and large pockets. Plus it looks good, so I’m very happy with this buy.

eBay is another good site for used running kit, and there’s an abundance of jackets, shorts and tops to be found. I got this adidas response jacket for £10, it’s extremely lightweight and packable, as well as being wind/shower-proof. It has great reflective detail for those twilight runs, and the colour scheme gives it a great retro look. No complaints from me for £10 here.

I also got these Nike dri-fit shorts for £2. Two. That’s about as much as a cup of coffee, and you’d expect to pay upwards of £20 for a brand-new pair. There are loads of similar bargains to be found on shorts, making them a great piece of kit to buy second-hand.

Hopefully these buys have convinced you (if you’re not already) that there are some great second-hand running finds to be had on sites like eBay and Depop, and that we can all do more to make running a more sustainable sport.

Running Shoes

We’re constantly being told to replace our shoes around every 300-500 miles, which for even the casual runner, isn’t actually that many. I bought my current pair at the end of March, and they’re already at 500, without the two races and subsequent training I had planned since then. Assuming we all follow that advice, that means a lot of old pairs of shoes, so the question is; how do we get rid of them? I often relegate an old pair of running shoes to either gym shoes or trainers to prolong their life, but at some point you have to make room in the cupboard. I haven’t been a serious runner for long enough yet to have gone through a lot of shoes, but I’m already thinking about what to do with them when the time comes. I haven’t looked at the second-hand shoe market much, but there does seem to be a reasonable amount on eBay, mostly pairs that have been worn once or twice before being sold.

I did find a couple of good initiatives for disposing of well-worn pairs though, those from Runners Need and ReRun, below:

Sustainable Initiatives

Runners Need and SOEX are currently running (no pun intended) a great scheme called Recycle My Run, where you can recycle your old pair of shoes at one of their stores in return for £20 off a new pair. Your old shoes are then sent off to second-hand markets around the world or broken down into raw materials, depending on the condition they’re in. This is a win-win really, as you’re getting a discount off a brand-new pair of shoes whilst diverting your old ones away from landfill, and possibly providing a good used pair for someone else.

When doing some research for this post, I came across ReRun, an organisation whose aim is to prolong the life of running clothes and equipment. They get involved in a whole host of sustainable and ethical initiatives, from taking donations and reselling used clothes/equipment, to upcycling pieces of kit that would otherwise be unsellable, and they even have a shoe bank that offers free shoes and equipment to those in need. They’ve got a great collection of second-hand and upcycled clothes in their online store, and I’ll definitely be checking them out next time I need some new kit.

With so many great initiatives for recycling old pieces of kit, the days of just throwing your old shoes in the bin are long gone. And with the second-hand market booming, there’s really no need to buy a brand new piece of kit every time you need one, and also piece of mind that you can find a good home for your old gear when the time comes.

My Running Goals for the Next Year

Thankfully my shoulder is feeling good enough to get back to running sling-less (seems like a p lant-based diet is great fo r injury recovery after all!), and I managed to get a few nice runs in this week.

The elite-only London Marathon was last week, and with Shura Kitata winning in 2:05:41, it appears that Eliud Kipchoge is human after all, finishing eighth and bringing his superhuman streak of 10 consecutive marathon wins to an end. The end of the belated 2020 race means that the ballot for 2021 entry opened, and after years of telling myself I’d enter, only to back out at the last minute, I finally took the plunge. 2021 will be the year I do a marathon, London or elsewhere (I’m writing it on the internet, so I have no excuses now).

A year is a long time, and the thought of potentially training for an event a full year from now got me thinking about what I’d like to achieve between now and then. My current times can be found on my About page. Having a physical record of my targets should act as an extra motivator too, and it’ll be fun to look back at this post this time next year to see how well (or not…) I’ve done! All race entries come with an asterisk these days of course, but I’m hopeful that races will return towards the summer.

So here are my targets for the next 12 months:

5K: a sub-20 5k would be the dream, but I have 39 seconds to shave off for that achievement. Hopefully, the return of Parkruns will provide the extra motivation, whenever the time comes. In an ideal world of regular Parkruns every Saturday (and a solid training routine) for a good stretch of next year, I think I can push closer to the 19:30 mark by the end of the year, but maybe I’m getting ahead of myself…

10K: I haven’t actually ran a 10k race yet, so my current best time isn’t really an ‘official’ one. I plan to enter one as soon as I can though, and I think the 45-minute mark is a realistic target for my first real go.

Half marathon: In the event that I’m lucky enough to get a place at the iconic London Marathon, getting at least a couple more half marathons under my belt is a necessity. I need to up my training runs to HM distance regardless of the return of races, but nothing beats having a crowd to cheer you to the finish, so for the next time I race a half, 1:45 is my aim, taking a full 4 minutes and 23 seconds off my current PB. This would also put me at 8-minute mile pace the entire way, which is nice and simple for pacing.

Marathon: Finish! I will do my first 26.2 in 2021, whether its London or somewhere else, and just crossing the finish line in one piece will be enough for me. Having a target time is important, though, and whilst going for a sub-4 debut time is an appealing (albeit highly ambitious) target, somewhere between 4hrs and 4:30 seems like a much more realistic goal.

Hopefully next year I’ll be among the throng of runners crossing the iconic Tower Bridge

If I don’t get a ballot place for the London Marathon (which, lets be honest, is the most probable outcome here), I will try and get a charity place through the MS Society, a charity dedicated to fighting multiple sclerosis, a degenerative neurological condition that my Grandad has suffered from for many years. And if I am lucky enough to get a ballot place, then I will use that to raise funds for the MS Society as well.

The ballot results are announced in early January, so fingers crossed! As soon as I hear back, I’ll make a post about the outcome and next steps. I’ll revisit these targets in a years time as well, should be interesting…

How Does a Vegan Diet Affect Injury Recovery?

I haven’t been able to do much running this week, as I’m recovering from a dislocated shoulder suffered whilst playing football. I managed a couple of tentative jogs, but running with a sling isn’t ideal… Sitting around unable to run got me thinking ‘how does my vegan diet impact my injury recovery?’ Does it help? Does it hinder it, when compared to a typical meat diet? So (after re-watching The Game Changers) I decided to do some research of my own into injury recovery and how a vegan/plant-based diet can affect it, to see if there was anything I should be doing differently.

Nate Diaz with some words of wisdom in The Game Changers (Netflix)

I struggled to find much work on the direct impact of vegan diets, so I decided to look at a few of the key nutritional considerations for injury recovery, and then see how compatible they are with a plant-based diet. This is a pretty broad topic (and outside my area of expertise) so I decided to keep it simple and focus on a few specific areas. I looked at two well-known factors in inflammation and protein, and came across a seemingly less well-known one in leucine.

Inflammation

Plant-based diets are well-known to reduce levels of inflammation in the body¹, whereas diets high in animal products can lead to increased inflammation, and the reduction of inflammation is one of the main considerations for injury recovery.

Following injury, there is an initial (acute) inflammatory response from the body which is crucial for healing, but further, long-term (chronic) inflammation would be detrimental². Going the other way, excessive anti-inflammatory measures could actually impair the initial recovery process, so it’s important to have balance whilst avoiding necessary inflammation. This is where a plant-based diet could be more effective than an animal-based one for recovery; avoiding unnecessary inflammation through diet but not providing an excessive anti-inflammatory response.

Protein

It seems intuitive that you should increase your protein intake during recovery to help build and maintain muscle, and most (but not all) of the studies I looked at recommended increasing protein intake during rehabilitation³. There were mixed views on increasing protein intake during the early stages of immobilisation⁴, with the emphasis is on maintaining an adequate intake, at least to pre-injury levels. Timing seems to be important though, and protein intake before sleep is recommended, to increase overnight amino acid availability and muscle protein synthesis^{5, 6}.

There wasn’t a lot of discussion about the importance of protein source in the studies that I found, but plant-based protein sources provide more anti-inflammatory properties than animal-based sources⁷ so would seem preferable for recovery.

Leucine

One thing that was heavily mentioned in the articles I looked at was the importance of leucine^{2, 3, 6}, an essential branched-chain amino acid (BCAA), in injury recovery. Leucine is known to improve protein synthesis and can ameliorate muscle loss², which can prove helpful in combating muscular atrophy (weakening) caused by lack of movement during the recovery process. Being an essential amino acid, the body cannot synthesise leucine, so it must be obtained through diet. Fortunately, a plant-based diet contains plenty of leucine sources, such as soy products, beans, and legumes. Protein powders also contain significant amounts of leucine, and whilst whey protein contains slightly more leucine than plant-based sources, the plant-based protein I have after a run or workout (Pulsin pea protein, chocolate flavour of course) contains around 60% of my recommended daily of leucine per serving, so I’m pretty confident that I’m getting enough.

Summary

The main emphasis for nutrition during injury recovery, unsurprisingly, is on the importance of a balanced diet and maintaining sufficient nutrient intake, avoiding any deficiencies. Protein intake should be maintained at the very least, and possibly increased, and leucine is important for combating muscle loss.

From what I’ve found (and this wasn’t an exhaustive search by any means), it seems clear that there are no key aspects of nutrition for injury recovery that are not available in plant-based diets, and the reductions in unnecessary inflammation given by plant-based diets could be beneficial to the recovery process, making them effective for injury recovery.

So I won’t be making any significant changes, maybe a bit more protein before bed, and hopefully get back to running next week! It goes without saying that this blog post shouldn’t be a substitute for professional medical advice concerning injuries.