Becoming Vegetarian Helped In Marathons: Hugo Mussier

Bengaluru: Hugo Mussier is an accomplished athlete from France with two successful marathons in 2019 and 2024. He was recently in India to attend the marriage of Harini and Ajay. Harini is the eldest of two daughters, of Mrs Usha, an IT professional, and Padmanabh Rao, a broadcast journalist. Harini and Ajay are colleagues of Hugo Mussier. During an informal chit-chat, Hugo Mussier (31) focused on his favourite sports. Here are some excerpts of the interaction:

I was not much into running: I ran my last marathon two weeks ago. The previous one was in 2019, about five years ago, while the beginning was in 2018. Then I worked for an aerospace company between Bristol and Birmingham in the United Kingdom. I was not much into running but more into sports activities like walking, swimming, and hiking.

Shifting to France: In 2019 I changed my workplace to France and found out the big difference in the weather between the UK and France. One could enjoy summer only in July and August and the nights used to be shorter, windy accompanied by bad weather in winter most of the time in the UK. However, it was a complete U-turn of beautiful and amazing weather in France which had a huge positive impact; undoubtedly encouraging me to get into activities like walking, running and hiking hugely.

Running more and more increasing the distance: The weather boosted my energy to increase my activities and more so running as the environs also added to the beauty, for a river was flowing amidst the town. I started running more and more and also started increasing the distance which I enjoyed doing. It is also a good takeaway in life when you are enjoying sports and whatever you're doing. As I mentioned earlier, I was more into running and doing more and more of running; a good of 20 kilometres.

Why not more?: Over some time I mastered the art of running for 20 kilometres while the half marathon is 21.1 kilometres. Slowly, I could achieve this feat also and kept myself wondering why I restricted myself to 20/21 kilometres while the full marathon is 42.2 kilometres or 42.195 kilometres to be more precise, if you want to be more accurate. Marathon in France is like the king and queen size of all races.

Challenging myself to run more: Once I started running a half marathon, the feat started pondering why I was limiting myself to a half marathon when I could do even more and felt like challenging myself to run more. That was in July but I had already started practising in May while the full marathon was in October 2019. So basically, from little running (5 to 10km max) in May to running a Marathon in early October. The challenge was set, with only 5 months to go!

Ate like a European! So I prepared, but I didn't prepare nicely. I didn't change anything and was eating like a European; everything was normal, practising everyday moderate running. I wouldn't say I was overweight but my body mass index BMI was close to 25 and it looked like I was heading towards becoming overweight; I was on the borderline of becoming one. So, physically I was sort of prepared for the marathon, mainly the muscles, but mentally I was very very ready for the race. In a way, I was ready for that as I love challenges in work, life, sports or whatever I do. Psychologically, I felt so much prepared; never doubting my capacities, it was very nice.

All sorts of people around: At a point, while running, you keep wondering what's it you are doing, but once you accomplish the task it is a great feeling at the end of the day. But, when it was around 32 kilometres or so, I felt I could go no more and my body became like a Congo. Interestingly, you have all sorts of people around you during the marathon to cheer you up and motivate you. Some unknown people exclaimed to me: ''Come on, keep running man, you're nearly there! Don't let it go!''.

Finished the first marathon: It was becoming very difficult after a point of time and was wondering what was happening to me. I slowed for a while, walked a bit and just glanced behind; started running again.. and so on and so forth until the finish line. It was an exciting experience as many other runners' despite being behind infused enthusiasm with vigour to make me run. Perhaps, that is the beautiful spirit when you run and most of them back you with their spirits. This way, I completed my first marathon in 2019 in 4 hours and 27 minutes, which was fairly good enough in terms of time taken to complete. I was happy I could achieve it but I had a bittersweet feeling as I could not achieve my target: 4hrs.

2024 marathon in my hometown Toulouse: After the first marathon, I got busy with my work and in between there was COVID-19; away from the native place and all such things added to my plight of not being active in running and other such activities. However, in 2023 I felt why not restart running again and started practising. Luckily in 2024, there was another marathon and when it is held in your town or city the very feeling surcharges your energy levels to make it happen.

I took it from a different angle: Although I was preparing for my second marathon I took it from a different angle and resolved to only do running and not indulge in any walking during the race. No doubt, running incessantly is stressful on your muscles I was determined to achieve it the way I wished to. So, in the first semester say from January to July, I was doing a lot of different sports.

All these activities helped me a lot: In a way, it was altogether a different game as I was simultaneously into running, cross-training, push-ups, jumping jack and therapy in different sessions. The purpose was to strengthen not only the running muscles but also the core muscles and the ones in the upper body. These were very good and all these activities helped me a lot.

Change of diet with no fat and sugar: Of course, the focus on a variety of exercises helped me to gear up for the second marathon I also made a conscious decision to avoid fat and sugar but it is very difficult to avoid them in French diets! Another problem in France is that if you drink, you drink too much and in the same way if you eat, you eat too much. In August in France, it is very hot and when you go on holiday, you tend to consume everything in large quantities affecting the normal schedule and diet.

Gearing up for the November marathon: Coming back from the August holidays, I started gearing up for the November marathon back in September and October itself. I stopped all sugar and all, all, all fats! This is very difficult as in French cuisine you have fat everywhere. Vegetarian food or vegan food is very rare or super rare and considered weird; people keep quizzing over the same apart from the peer pressure to eat meat. Not eating dessert is fine but not eating meat is still questionable in France. We eat a lot of desserts and we love to eat meat, whether it is chicken, pork or beef. In a way, it is good for your body as it has a lot of proteins but at the same time, all of them have enough saturated fat more than required. When you consume such foodstuffs, no doubt they get digested in your stomach while bad fat continues to remain in the body.

Became a vegetarian, cut alcohol: So, I cut all these as a challenge to society and became a full-time vegetarian and gave up alcohol as in France, you wish to have a couple of beers after work; go out with friends once or twice in a year and have alcohol which is nothing crazy, but is bad in calories. The more you have it, you feel tired when you get up in the morning. Not a good body intake. To compensate for the loss of proteins I started taking legumins, chickpeas or beans. Wgen cooked with the right ingredients, they are super good along with omega-3 fish, good for the body, full of proteins and not fat at all.

From 65 kg to 57 kg! Both, in September and October, I became very cautious and rigidly continued with my strict vegetarian diet. At the beginning of these two months, I was 65 kgs on 1st September and for my height which is 165 cm, had I not followed a vegetarian diet it would have gone much more. On the day of the marathon, i.e. 07th of November I was 57kgs! So, I had lost 8 kilos, which is more than 10 per cent of my body mass, lost some muscles and a good 75 to 80 per cent of what I lost was all fat.

Felt like a warhorse for the race: That was pretty good and people exclaimed seeing my body and shape that I was looking more healthy. The vegetarian diet also had a positive effect on my body as I used to feel energetic in the morning and from all these perspectives I felt to myself that I was a lot better now for the race, determined like a warhorse! 

Mother and father also in the marathon: The D day finally arrived on Sunday, my mother was running a half marathon and my father was also there running the marathon (both are 62 years old). We were not at the same pace, but he was also there for the king & queen race. I was very cautious this time and every five kilometres I had water, fruit juice and proteins all along the way to keep abreast with a lot more people all around.

Fighting with myself: I was feeling good even at the end of the 30th kilometre with everything under control. My heartbeat was good like all other cardio-related parameters. However, my muscles were off and on but I kept running, running and running. My watch was showing my average speed and also the distance, hence it triggered multiple thoughts within me as to what speed you need to keep running to reach the target. At the end of the 37th kilometre, it became more challenging due to the traffic jam, and my body became very hard hinting at red alert in its own way. I still had to run further and wondered whether I was fighting with myself to reach the goal.

Late by 400 metres: It was a very difficult perspective psychologically and a challenge as well, because I reached the 40th kilometre and was only 2.2 kilometres away from the finish line. When you are here, you need to finish but it is not so easy at that point. Interestingly, I had reached the 40th kilometre and realised that I was behind an extra 400 metres in order to reach my time target ! You may laugh, but at such a juncture, everything counts and matters a lot after coming to know that you are behind by 400 metres.

The goal in 3.59 hours: In fact, the speed keeps varying due to many reasons due to the minimal path, you keep changing the path on the left, and right; the zig-zag routes to overtake those going in the front. Usually, there will be a difference of 100 metres but I was lagging by 400 metres. Hence, I started feeling extra stress, and extra pressure and kept saying to myself; Hey man, you can do it; keep doing it. I was literally dying, but there was no way out other than running and giving the best of myself. Finally, I used all the available energy within me and could make it within 3 hours, 59 minutes & 8 seconds; really, really shocking it was. I managed it and was very happy, really proud and won my medal indeed. Obviously, for the next two weeks, no sports activities were recommended.

Vegetarian diet is mainly responsible: After my first marathon in 2019, I was very much tired and it took some time to return to normal. But this time around, I never experienced anything of that sort, I recovered very fast, and the credit for success goes mainly to the vegetarian diet I followed along with other precautions and preparations on the whole. Ultimately what I would like to say to all those interested in trying running for a marathon: ''Never give up !''.

-Manohar Yadavatti