60 year old vegan is trekking Iceland to raise money for charity

June 1, 2006

This is from the vegan family house site ( http://www.veganfamily.co.uk/index.html ) Vegan Trekker goes on the trail… Just thought you might be interested to hear about my dad (aged 61) who has been vegetarian since 1980 and vegan since 2002. He has decided to go on a fundraising trek to Iceland which will entail 7 days of hard hill-walking, averaging 6 hours a day (some days are 8 or 9 hours of walking). My Dad went vegetarian because of the cruelty involved in eating meat. Later as members of Viva he began to realise the cruelty involved in the dairy and egg industry, so he began to cut back on this in his diet. Then in 2002 a friend of my Mom and Dad’s stayed at the Bristol Cancer Clinic for a while, and they told him that the best way to beat cancer is to eat a vegan diet. Their friend found cheese a real stumbling block, but overcame

it. And hearing how he had managed to cut out cheese from his diet inspired my Mom and Dad to go totally vegan too. They are regular rs to Vegan magazine too. I think the strangest ‘vegan thing’ my dad does is put mango juice on his breakfast cereal instead of milk – I’ve tried it a few times, but it just feels too strange! (I use ‘so good’ instead!). My dad will, of course be totally vegan-powered for the trek, which takes place this August. The company have agreed to provide vegan meals for him en-route and he is taking a high energy trail mix along with him. Dad’s trail mix is brazil nuts, pine nuts, sunflower seeds and dried fruit. He is currently doing 4 hour walks and finds he starts to flag after 3 hours if he does not have his trusty trail mix with him. He is also kitted out in entirely vegan clothes, although the boots have been a stumbling block as he has been unable to source vegan walking boots of a high enough rating that are

both waterproof and breathable for the taxing hill walking he will be doing. If anyone knows of a company who could provide vegan boots – please let us know. The training course he is following is a 16 week course building up from 30 minute walks to 8 hour walks. Some days he does long walks, some days shorter (1 hour). It’s important to have a rest day every other day when no walking is done, on these days a few exercises are followed instead. We were surprised to find out that these rest days are as important as the walking days – if you don’t take them then your muscle does not get a chance to grow - it just gets used up again when you train the next day. The training course instructs you to cut right back on the walking just before your trek so that you don’t wear yourself out beforehand. The trek includes one rest day in Rekjavik at the end of the trek. The guide says that ‘for vegetarians the pastries are very good in Rekjavik’, because

apparently, they ‘don’t do vegetarian’ in Iceland! This trek is classed as ‘hard’ because of the rugged terrain it covers. (Many of the fund-raising treks are classed as moderate.) In addition to the money raised for disadvantaged children in developing countries, my dad hopes he will be able to raise people’s awareness about the health- enhancing properties of a vegan diet. If you would like to follow the progress of this vegan trekker, you can see my dad’s fundraising page at http://www.justgiving.com/grahamstretton If you know of any companies who would be interested in sponsoring my dad as a vegan trekker, or providing any energy bars or mixes or anything else for his training or trek we’d love to know. Thanks.Peter H

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