Becoming Addicted

Friday I ran into one of my neighbors at the post office.  It has been awhile since we have talked but one of the first things she said to me is that she has seen me running lately and that she can tell that I'm "getting addicted."

I think my neighbor is right.

Last week I wasn't able to run outside on Monday or Tuesday and I was really looking forward to running on Wednesday afternoon.  But as they day went on, my afternoon became busy.  At 4:15 as I was talking to Bob on Skype before he went to bed, I realized that I just needed to run and hopefully he would still be awake to talk to in an hour when I returned (it would be after 11 at night for him).   After my run, I felt the stress melt away, I was ready for an evening of meetings.  Really the run is what I needed at the moment.

Then on Saturday I ran my longest run to date, 8.69 miles.  My goal was 8 miles and my GPS had stopped working for a bit so it wasn't giving me an accurate reading.  When I mapped my run afterwards I realized that I should have run longer and gotten 9.

For I have found the mythical runner's high.  The first few miles of that run were rough since I had eaten a lot the day before, but by mile 4, I was going strong.  By the time I finished my run I probably could have run further if I was motivated to reach a certain mileage.

My addiction is currently coming across as two short term goals:

• Right now I'm very close to 300 miles since I started using MapMyRun in May, so I'm hoping to reach that milestone within the week
• My long run goal for this week is at least 10 miles. 

I'm also thinking long-term.  Bob just ran his first half marathon this weekend, the Paris 20K (okay a 20K isn't a full 13.1 miles but close enough at 12.4) with a great time of 1:35:55.  I also know a few people who have run full or half marathons over the past few weekend.  If I'm running 10 miles on my own this weekend, well it is not a whole lot more to 13.1. 

But my addiction is not always good.  I'm headed to Philly Tuesday-Wednesday and I'm already thinking about how I can get a run in while there, even though the agenda is packed.  I know I'll get antsy if I go 48 hours without running now.  I might start tweaking out and showing other withdrawal symptoms: moodiness, agitation, insomnia.

This all leads me to ask: Is there a Runner's Anonymous?