Over the winter I took an avalanche course with with a friend of mine, Rick, who ran Leadville with me. Our guide, upon learning that we run 100's for fun, asked what we're running from, seriously. I tried to come up with something witty: "your mom" was the best thing I thought of so of course I didn't really respond. I think we tried to explain that we weren't running from anything and that we just enjoy being outside, pushing ourselves, and blah blah blah, seriously. Yeah, seriously, I tried to defend this crazed behavior.
I begin to get defensive when someone thinks there is something wrong with me because I like running long distances. This probably indicates that there is something wrong with me.
So it comes as no surprise that ultrarunning is starting to be seen as something of a "strange addiction." At least it that's how it is portrayed on the show "My Strange Addiction," which I discovered here when I was perusing the blog-o-sphere (speaking of, when was the last time you heard that word?).
Here's the only clip I could find:
From what I can tell, in the same episode that they talk about the ultrarunner, Troy, they discuss a girl that spends 10 hours a day shopping. Spending any amount of time shopping each day seem totally deranged to me, while running each day to be fit enough to destroy your body running one hundred miles doesn't seem that odd.
I became mildly obsessed with the idea that ultrarunning is a "strange addiction" and I started reading up on it. Here's a forum that discusses whether it is a strange addiction or isn't in enervating detail.
My thought is that the show "My Strange Addiction" showcases those activities that not normal for the majority or average person. But that's ok. In fact, it's expected. Ultrarunning is not something that the average person does. The average person watches 6 hours and 47 minutes of television PER DAY. It then makes perfect sense to think that someone watching "My Strange Addiction" actually believes that running an hour or two or three a day is 'odd', while simultaneously believing it is 'normal' to watch 6.8 hours of TV a day. So maybe we just need to ask what constitutes 'normal' behavior.
Thoughts?