by Jenna Bradford
(Other titles considered for this post: “Trail Addiction: What Happens When You Do Nothing About It”, and “Can You REALLY Blame It On Peer Pressure?”)
There are many ways to spot an addiction. One of the first things to go when someone reaches the point of full-fledged dependency is the inability to responsibly manage other priorities. I’ve taken a moment to document for you a few examples of mismanaged priorities that may be tougher to spot.
- The backyard gets neglected to the point that you “forget” to mow the lawn for 6 weeks and you have to hire it out to someone who then has to mow it 4 times in a row to get it manageable because you’re too busy chasing trail.
- The garden is STILL sitting with plants dying and tomatoes and squashes rotting in November from the previous season because you’re too busy chasing trail.
- Your room is a disaster with “stuff” everywhere, but 98% of that “stuff” making a mess is new running crap you don’t have room for because you still have to get rid of your OLD running crap, but you don’t have time because you’re too busy chasing trail.
- Someone hides a Secret Santa Christmas gift for you on a trail you’ve never run before, and it sits for a whole week after it was placed and clues were delivered to your inbox before you make an attempt to retrieve it because you were too busy chasing OTHER trail, which then leads to multiple attempts because said week included a massive snow dump. Multiple waist-deep snow trudges could have easily been avoided, but you didn’t even check the weather because you were too busy chasing trail.