Addiction
Addiction.
There’s different levels. Categories. Types.
It could be a physiological, physical, or just plain obsession that’s all in your head.
It is, however, important.
A year ago, I got back in to running. I had been on and off since starting college, depending on if I had time (spoiler, you always have time), and whether I felt like it.
After getting back in to a running program again however, I got hooked.
There were days that if I didn’t get a run in, I started to feel anxious. Jitters that turned into just a crazed yearning for running. And even on days that I did plan to run, if it was going to be later that afternoon, I felt like I needed to do it ASAP.
Running is an addiction. (If you’re doing it right)
I did, however, end up pushing myself too hard.
Like a crash with any other addiction, I burned out hard when I injured myself last year. I’m still not sure what I did wrong, whether it was running nearly 30 miles in the few days after rocking hard at a Carly Rae Jepsen concert, or if my training plan was too harsh, or if I just landed the wrong way a few times too many.
I tried to run and just couldn’t - my knee was yelling at me to not.
So I ended up not running. For weeks. I tried using machines, and was able to somewhat do the elliptical, but I was bummed out. I could no longer run.
It took a bit, and experimenting, but I eventually got into spinning. I’m lucky that my gym offers free spin classes, so I went to a couple of those in April. Then over the summer, I started doing some of that on my own. I also had fun with biking about 16 miles around San Francisco when I was there for WWDC. Eventually I figured I needed a bike of my own.
Here I am now about a year later from running and getting into fitness seriously, and I’m addicted. I’m hooked on biking. As I type this, I just finished an hour of cycling in the gym. An hour. 22 miles on a Saturday after I stayed out until 2 AM. And tomorrow I’ll bike another hour or so to hit my calorie goal on my Apple Watch, and to also feed the beast that is my addiction.
I’m hooked. I love it to death, and cycling is one of the most dedicated things I’ve done for myself. I don’t know where I’ll go fitness wise from here, but I am going to keep doing it.