TINAR Race Series is a vegan organization. The following information is offered a voluntary basis (meaning, you choose to come to this web page).
TINAR never requires that participants or staff adopt a vegan lifestyle at its races, but does encourage thoughtful consideration of such lifestyle.
Eat less meat.
Eat less dairy.
It’s better for you and it’s way better for the animals that suffer because of it. Try it—you might like it.
You might like it so much, you’ll never want to go back! It’s not about what you call it (vegan, vegetarian, plant-based), it’s about the intention. We all want to live better, healthier, more sustainable lives, and this is an easy way to do that. Every time you pick up a fork, you get to make a conscious choice about our food system and your body’s health. It’s time to rethink that choice.
Protecting the Trail
Harvey Lewis, a vegan athlete
As trail runners, we share a deep love and appreciation for the natural world around us. We spend hours, days, and weeks outside at length, exploring and roaming: how could this time not imprint the importance of taking care of our planet?
Changing our diets to prioritize beans, lentils, soy, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and whole grains is a significant way to decrease our carbon footprint.
According to a report done by GRAIN and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, the world’s top five meat and dairy corporations are producing more annual greenhouse gas emissions than BP, Exxon, or Shell. Multiple recent studies (here, here, and here) by major world organizations have stressed the need for significant global dietary shifts towards plant-based diets in order to mitigate existing climate change.
A massive global increase in demand for meat, dairy, and eggs has contributed significantly to ecosystem destruction in multiple ways. Native ecosystems are destroyed to create land needed for factory farms, to grow mono-crops to feed farmed animals, to drain local aquifers to meet the huge water demand for these crops and animals.
A 4 oz serving of beef requires 463 gallons (the equivalent of a large hot tub) of fresh water. Producing the same amount of tofu uses 76 gallons. Manure runoff from factory farming puts excessive nitrogen and phosphorus into major waterways, choking the oxygen from water, creating inhospitable “dead zones'' and increasing toxin load in our drinking supply.
Luckily, what’s good for the planet is also good for us. A whole foods plant-based diet has significant power to prevent and improve chronic diseases, including type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. Plant-based diets have also been shown to lower risk of developing cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, and even severe COVID-19. The oldest people in the world predominantly eat plants! Why? Plant-based diets are high in multiple health-promoting nutrients such as fiber, antioxidants, phytonutrients, vitamins, and minerals, while low in potentially harmful compounds including cholesterol, saturated fat, mercury, heterocyclic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and added nitrites.
Fueling Our Bodies
All food at TINAR races is vegan/plant-based
From an athletic perspective, a whole foods plant-based diet is a powerful tool for recovery and performance. Plant-based diets are rich in carbohydrates, the preferred energy source for our bodies and key to good athletic performance.
Complex carbohydrates high in fiber such as white or sweet potatoes, corn, quinoa, rice, farro, whole grain pasta, sourdough bread supply us with long term energy for restoring glycogen storage after exercise. We use simple carbohydrates low in fiber for quick fueling during our training and racing, e.g. gels, soda, juice, crackers, pretzels, rice cakes.
Despite popular concern, with a varied and calorically-adequate plant-based diet, getting enough protein is not an issue. Plants supply all the protein we need—beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh, and seitan being particularly rich sources. Moreover, almost all food we eat has some amount of protein in it (excluding pure sugar and oil) and these small amounts easily compound over the day. All plants do contain the nine essential amino acids we need, however, different plants have varying amounts of each. This creates an issue only if someone were to eat an extremely restrictive diet, as the amino acid profiles of all the foods we eat overlap to prevent deficiency.. Our bodies also keep a free amino acid pool, a protein slush fund of sorts, guaranteeing amino acids are present when needed to rebuild muscle or tissue structures.
Plant-based diets boast increased levels of antioxidants and flavonoids, particularly vitamin C, vitamin E, anthocyanins, and carotenoids. Different colors of produce are associated with different antioxidants, compounds that decrease inflammation and oxidative stress. Studies on supplementing antioxidants are inconclusive, pointing to the importance of dietary sources. Plant foods particularly high in antioxidants are beets, cherries, berries, dark leafy greens, cacao, and broccoli. Outside of our own health, plant-based diets also show great compassion towards the sentient animals sharing our planet.
Animals from Tamerlaine Farm Sanctuary
Protecting Our Animal Friends
For many of us, veganism is a way to link our actions with our innate compunction towards harming animals. None of us would ever dream of hurting a cat or dog, yet we fund multiple acts of cruelty towards farmed animals when we choose to buy meat, fish, dairy, or eggs.
Cows, chickens, pigs, and sheep have the same (if not greater) intellectual and emotional capacity of our companion animals, so why do we treat them differently?
Farmed animals are not included under anti-animal cruelty laws, meaning they are routinely and legally subjected to cramped filthy living spaces, having their babies taken from them upon birth, docking or removal of their ears, beaks, tails, and nails without anesthesia, and forced artificial insemination. All farmed animals must be transported to slaughterhouses, a horrific journey without water, food, or climate control in which many die. Once there, someone has to kill these animals for us. Slaughterhouse workers typically come from marginalized populations and show increased rates of PTSD and physical injuries.
We have an amazing ability: to vote with our fork every day towards the type of world we want for our planet, ourselves, and the animals here with us. Our food choices have the power to promote planetary health, boost our wellbeing and athletic performance, and increase compassion towards animals and other humans. With every human culture under the sun eating plants, what a fun way to expand your tastes and health!
And if we can fully thrive on plants, why wouldn’t we want to cause less suffering in this world?
This page was jointly developed for TINAR Race Series by:
Anna Titcomb
Registered Dietitian, & Trail Runner,
Vegan Since 2019
Samuel Hartman
Race Director for TINAR Race Series & Vegan Since 2006
Click the image to learn more about Anna or Samuel!
Photo credits: Harvey Lewis photo by Dante Huynh. Aid station photo by Emily Thaler. Tamerlaine photos by Samuel Hartman. Anna Titcomb photo by Andrew Roddewig. Samuel headshot by Adrian Centoni.