Melissa Schweisguth photo credit: TIME
This is third guest post on eco-friendly running from Melissa Schweisguth. (Here’s the first, on clothing and shoes, and the second, about racing, training and tech.) I’m featuring Melissa’s post because running and the environment are two of my passions, and she’s done a beautiful job of marrying the two.
Melissa is a 36-year-old fellow sustainability professional and writer who also enjoys running. She puts me to shame, and not just because she clocked an impressive 3:11:07 in the Eugene (Oregon) Marathon this year. Melissa hasn’t thrown anything into a landfill since 2006, which earned her notice in Time magazine (due to non-consumerism and creative reuse.). She thrives on an organic, whole foods, locally-based and almost exclusively vegan diet, (as does famed ultra runner Scott Jurek). She’s been working on improving her running footprint to avoid trampling people or planet and has written three blogposts on running “au naturel” for her blog, Living Acoustically, which she’s kindly agreed to let me share here. I don’t expect most runners to be as “green” as Melissa, but my hope is that she’ll inspire you, whether you run or not, as she has inspired me to make a change or two in your lives. When she isn’t running, Melissa works a freelance writer and consultant on sustainability issues and media relations, and as director of membership and development for the Food Trade Sustainability Leadership Association.
Here’s my last post about my efforts to maximize and improve running performance while honoring a guiding principle that defines sustainability for me: “live simply so that others may simply live.”
As noted…This is being shared for informational purposes only and not intended to be preachy or judgmental, as neither is my style. We all have different backgrounds and resource demands in our lives, and I’m the first to admit there are many things I can improve!
Food
I grew up eating home-cooked whole food, much of it homegrown organic, and eat exclusively organic whole foods sourced as locally as possible now, and fuel my runs the same way. When I trained for and ran my first race, a marathon, in 2000, so-called energy bars, gels, etc. were emerging and unknown to me. Oatmeal with nuts and raisins worked well enough for me to train for and finish that marathon in 3:39:30.
Clif bars greeted me at the finish line and I had two jobs that routed free samples my way so I started to eat them periodically before long runs and longer races (with the trusty oatmeal) and later added Clif Shots/Bloks/Moons moons for some long runs and races. After deciding to save my trash for a year and realizing the wrappers made up quite a bit of my waste, I made a tote bag from the wrappers, returned to just oatmeal and started making my own energy gels (rice syrup, honey, molasses, cacao powder, salt –provides key electrolytes: sodium, potassium, magnesium, with an initial kick and sustained energy from sweeteners with different glucose/fructose ratios). [click to continue…]
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