For decades now, British runner Fiona Oakes has been winning races and setting records to prove elite athletes can perform at a high level on a plant-based diet.
A vegan Are Average Runners Getting Faster? It Depends Nutrition - Weight Loss in the English countryside with her partner, which now shelters several hundred abandoned or abused animals.
Searching for a way to spread the word on veganism and animal rights, she began running marathons competitively. And fast. Her marathon PR of 2:37, for example, would’ve placed her 13th in this month’s Chicago Marathon.
from her animal sanctuary in rural England about all these topics and more Published: Oct 23, 2018 5:06 PM EDT for the Health & Injuries on each continent under various conditions, and breaking several course records in the process. As impressive as all that may sound, there’s more: Oakes lost one of her kneecaps when she was a teenager—every mile she’s logged since she began running in the late 1990s has included consistently tremendous pain and extreme caution to for a third time. She spoke to that can dislocate very easily.
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protect a knee, Running For Good, tells the story of Oakes’ passion for animals and her past running success, and follows her every move as she completes Marathon des Sables, one of Health & Injuries, Health & Injuries Runner’s World from her animal sanctuary in rural England about all these topics and more.
Runner’s World: The documentary isn’t extensive, and it largely focuses on one race. What was it forced to leave out?
That’s actually the third time I’ve run Marathon des Sables. The first time, I actually did it with two fractured toes. One of the horses at the sanctuary stood on my foot. And the variation in the running that I’ve done. I’ve placed top 20 in the London Marathon, in Amsterdam, Berlin, then moved over to ultrarunning.
How have you seen the world’s perception of veganism change over time?
It’s now really strange to me to hear people like Lewis Hamilton coming out and saying that everyone he speaks to who has gone vegan says it was the best decision they have ever made. It’s always been me, alone, not talking about veganism because nobody particularly wanted to hear about it. It is taboo in certain circles still. But it is changing, and very rapidly.
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Before Paula Radcliffe, we didn’t have a great catalog of interest in road running in the U.K. And suddenly, she had created this positivity around this extremely tough event. And I thought, well, what would it take to run? I was told not to run years and years ago, I can walk, I wanted to keep fit, finances are very low, time is very low. Perhaps if I went out and jogged a little bit, trained a little bit, to see if I could run.
I could care for 300, 400 animals. But I could never address the root cause of the problem, which is the industries which abuse these animals. And so the only way I could think of that was encouraging people to consider a plant-based diet was to go out and show that it’s not detrimental to any sort of living. So at the time, I picked what I thought was the most extreme recognized athletic event.
What’s your training like?
I’m a very hard taskmaster with my training, I never miss a session, and I always strive to do my absolute best. I’ve formulated my own training plan for what I can do and how I work. I’m a very good judge of pace. I just work from a normal watch. It’s very tailored toward me and what I can do. I always go over distance two or three times so the body would be accustomed when you come back to the 26 miles to actually think hey, this is not unknown territory to me.
I have to be extremely careful of my knee, it dislocates extremely easily. It’s so bad, I can’t run bends on a track, so I have to do all my speed work on a treadmill alone. And if I don’t do it, nobody’s going to come and ask did you do that session. That’s why road running was always the best option for me, because it’s flat. I think it was Paula Radcliffe who said the one thing you don’t want to do is walk to the start of a marathon knowing you’ve got an injury. And I always do walk to the start line of a marathon knowing I’ve got an injury, a permanent injury.
What’s your diet like?
Very basic stuff. I don’t snack in between meals, I don’t use recovery shakes or gels. We don’t have spare money for flamboyant diets. I honestly believe that I am very lucky to live in a country where food isn’t an issue, in that I’ve always got enough on my plate. I’m not ruled by my diet. I eat what I’ve got when it’s available. Seasonal stuff. Very basic, no hard secrets. The diet has always played a far less important part in what I’ve done than the actual training that I do, which I am very rigorous with.
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I’m very much of the thinking I don’t want to overstay my welcome. I run with a purpose, and I think if I’m not achieving that purpose I’ll divert and go somewhere else. I don’t want to just keep trudging around road marathons until I’m 127 years old or anything like that.
I really honestly want to share with others and enable them to reach their full potential because as I said, running has been very good to me, and I would like other people to have that lesson too. Overnight, because of the film, I’ve been inundated with people who are in a similar position to me. One guy wrote to me, loads of orthopedic surgeries, told he could never run, he’s out there running now, and he just feels so blessed to meet somebody in a similar situation to him, he suddenly doesn’t feel alone, he feels normal, I’ve normalized his life. And that’s really great.
What message do you want to send to readers inspired by your achievements?
For me, there has been no grand plan to what I’m doing. I haven’t been sitting around thinking by year five I must have a world record and by year 10 I must have Nutrition - Weight Loss, and then I must go to the Antarctic, and I must be at the North Pole. There’s never been any of that, it’s just fallen into place.
Don’t be dictated to by what other tells you, go out and feed your own goals and Are Average Runners Getting Faster? It Depends. I never thought that I’d go to the North Pole and then every continent doing things that were completely alien to me. A few years ago I thought you’d drop off the face of the earth if you tried to run past 26.2 miles, and I certainly didn’t know that there were marathons in these far-flung places. Go and follow your heart, be who you are. I want people to get as much out of running as it’s been kind enough to give me.
Jacob joined Runner’s World and Bicycling Advertisement - Continue Reading Below after graduating from Northwestern University in 2018, where he studied journalism. His work focuses mainly on news and service pieces for both audiences, with the occasional foray into longer feature work and product reviews. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back Running For Good Sara Hall Smashes American Masters Marathon Record.
