If running is your "main" hobby now, do you keep any other hobbies also? (Read 296 times)

Ok, if you do not have much time and are reading this at work, skip the lined off section and post your answer.  If you are really, really bored, then perhaps you read in the middle here....

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Ok, here is the thing.   (Warning!  This is a bit of a post-awesome-run, had 3 beers to celebrate-and-can-only-handle-2 rant!).   I never used to run, at all, until 5 years ago.    When I picked up running, I dropped my Hobby (call me nuts) of collecting Gift Cards.  I had amassed about 9,000 different Gift-Cards between 2000 and 2007.  You know, the little cards you see in Target, Barnes + Noble, Borders (bankrupt), etc.    Anyway, I put that collection completely aside and didn't touch it at all 2008-2014.   (The running took over!)

In 2014, I am in a Barnes + Noble, and they happened to have a "Guinness Book of World Records" book out there on the table.  By happenstance,  I popped it open to "collections".   Low and behold, someone was in the record book for "Most Gift Cards" with 3,715.  (all different, no 2 alike).   I told my wife, "pfft, I have way more than that as of 5 years ago in the closet"...

So I started playing "catch up", while injured and could not run the past few minths, getting different Gift Cards 2009-2014 from others, and sent a request off to Guinness Book of World Records with What I had at the time, and how to submit.  Because they are Guinness, of course they are not going to tell me I am mother friggin' nuts for collecting pieces of plastic!  They stated my collection far exceeds what was previously done and have given me the direction on how to submit my collection, whereupon I will have the "Guinness Record" for the hobby.   (Bucket list item since a kid - be in the book).

As of today, I have over 14,000 all-different different Gift cards.  I will continue to dual-hobby, meaning running still as I get healthier again, and also keep pushing this # higher and higher for Gift cards.

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For those with limited time who jumped down below the line here because you have limited time, or or reading from work at a busier job (unlike those working govt jobs and touching forums on the clock, hehe!) , what is your "other": hobby besides Running ????

I ran on too much on my hobby here, but am interested to see if any runners also have other hobbies that they pursue with a vigor.   I know that many runners have no "collections" or things of the sort, many focus just on running.  But are there others out there with big hobbies outside of running?

When I was a serious runner (pursuing sub-31 10K and Olympic Trial marathon qualifier time) there was nothing else besides grad school and running.  Ask my fiancee (now wife).  In the off season...about 1-2 months a year...I let hunting squeak in.

Once a full-time career intruded, I knew I would never be able to keep up the kind of training that took me to that level so I more or less flipped.  I've had periods of "decent" running since my peak in 2006 but it has literally been a difference between closing the second half of a 10K in 15:18, and never running a 5K within a minute of that since.

Winemaking and maintaining the vineyard/orchard to support that....habitat management of a 15 acre farm for deer and wildlife....multiple gardens....hunting and related shooting sports....on and off novel writing....I've got plenty of interests outside of running, to the point it is hard to ever dedicate to running long enough to get anywhere again.

While injured last year, I decided to take my first art class since elementary school.  Did this last week:

Kris, awesome! Rubbing virtual elbows with a world record holder not only gives me a story to tell at dinner tonight, but inspires to me to keep at my own creative activities.

Stadjak, that's a real good drawing.

Other than running, I like to draw comics in my own hacky way, write plays for kids and colleges and adults, some fiction, sing and play guitar, and am a huge Survivor fan (since it started).

I have two webcomics going that take some time to do (both sometimes NSFK), I'm not a great artist and am slow, but I keep going:

Crusted Salt  (mostly running themed, since January 2012, 170 panels)

Zartmo B  ( new one I launched a few weeks ago, just 3 panels so far)

I believe life is a creative venture for everyone, and creativity weaves its way through all aspects, whether you're raising kids, married, in business, in the arts, running, gardening, making beer or wine, creating collections----and all these bodies of work we are making all add up to the main body of work, our lives. Keep going!

Running and cycling share the top hobby spot (in the warmer months cycling is the top spot, but during the colder months I log more time running).

But recently I started putting together a 50g planted freshwater aquarium, too.  A little over a year ago I bought a 5g nano tank on a whim when I was looking for a positive distraction after the sudden passing of my 12 year old nephew to a brainstem tumor.  <11 months later my dad succumbed to a short battle with colon cancer (short because the dumbass never once had a colonoscopy and refused to see a doctor until 6 weeks before his passing).  A dear HS friend lost her DH to skin cancer just weeks before my dad passed, so with all of the death surrounding me I needed a bigger outlet than an established 5g aquarium could provide.

In the coming week or two I'm hoping to get substrate and plants in.  Perhaps in another month or two after that the plants will be established, the biological filter will be cycled, and I'll be ready for fishy occupants.

I'm back to running now, but one fantastic thing I picked up during my LONG LONG LONG injury hiatus was

standup comedy

yes

I couldn't run but I could do standup

I also took up swimming pretty intensely, and also tumblr.  I already read a lot of books and make tiny animal sculptures.

Here is a tiny animal sculpture I made.

Within reason, yes. For example, I still do like to hike and camp, bike and do gym classes, though golf has gone away (too expensive and annoyed that it's all about driving around in a golf cart). Can drinking be considered a hobby? I like to do that out at my neighbourhood pub deck every week or so!

However, I do like to run and even on weeks where I'm not serious, the miles flow - I guess it's not hard to get a lot of miles per week when you run-commute to work?

That's some beautiful work there, kilkee.