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

Why, thank you!  There was a huge hiatus between high school and last year; I only produced a handful of things in 10 years, but now I've doubled down on the ink drawings because they are small enough that I can finish them in a few weeks and interesting enough that I don't feel like I'm "cheating" at making art.

Yes, good work Kilkee.

Running is definitely my main hobby, if you define hobby as something you love to do that you'll never make money at.  Music used to be my main hobby, but that's also my job so I do make money at it.

Other than that, I do photography and quilting.  You can see some of my photography here.  I also love to read.  Sadly, all these hobbies only happen when I'm not in school, while running occurs year-round.

I often regret buying a home in a subdivision...if we had more land I'd be among the recurve-shooting ranks, too.  I was pretty good at archery in HS.  Though my eyesight has gone to shit in the past couple of years (first real glasses at ~40, friggin' bifocals just before 42), so that might be more frustration than relaxation, at this point.

Early last year I set up my first planted fish tank...just a 5g with a betta, snail, and African Dwarf Frog.  I currently have a high-tech (ie Co2 injected, high-level LED lighting) planted 50g nitrogen-cycling and will hopefully be ready for fish in ~2 weeks.  It's like the N+1 thing with bikes...now I'm contemplating how awesome it would be to have 100g+ in the basement (which isn't even finished and we have no immediate plans to do so)...maybe even a reef tank.

Why can I not take up cheap activities/hobbies?  Running is, by FAR, the cheapest thing I enjoy.

 

Someone shoots bow in their driveway at my inlaw's subdivision in NY. Of all the things that get complained about in that subdivision it never come up.

I probably could shoot towards the lot across the street, actually.  It's vacant...but there's a creek at the backside of the lot where kids go and muck about looking for critters.

Photography is my other hobby. Fortunately I am able to combine my love of running and photography as a photographer for the Atlanta Track Club. But outside of their events I don't get out to photograph landscapes & waterfalls as much as I used to before I started running. Hard to get motivated for that after running 3+ hours.

 

Haha, I pull about 27# with finger release and sink my cheapo carbon arrows about 8" into a foam block.

 

I do love how relaxing and rewarding it is!  Even just target shooting, though I've been eyeing the multiplying bunnies in my yard...

I have a 35# recurve I have not had out much since I was a kid.  I'm teaching my daughter with hers, which is an adjustable kids model.  But personally when I do shoot it's a 70# compound.  I enjoy instinctive but there's something about stacking arrows at 50-60 yards and watching them arc out there too.

Running is my main hobby. Gardening and reading take up the rest of my time and energy, when I have it. I do have a particular fondness for roses and currently have at least twenty growing in my small urban garden along with lots of other flowers. Somewhere along the way I got really fascinated with medieval garden plants, something to do with the purported medicinal and healing properties as well as the antiquity of these plants. I absolutely loved loved visiting the Cloisters garden in New York as well as various potager and courtyard gardens (especially the lovely Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston.. oh my). I like to try to create little garden vignettes with medieval plants and arches and paths and things, it makes me happy. I also put a good amount of time into "gardening" at one of the local community gardens which, in actuality, ends up to be about 30% gardening and 70% socializing. I do love books and usually have at least two or three going at a time. Before running took over my life I spent lots of time reading and hanging out with mostly retirees discussing books at the Graham School Basic Program, a four year noncredit certificate program that guides you through many of the "great books". I loved it even though I spent a lot of time feeling kind of clueless and dumb trying to think and speak like a "liberal arts type" person rather than a "science type" person. Still, I learned a lot and continue to try. Thinking about it now, I am pretty sure that when I filled out my college application I reported my "interests" to be running, reading, and gardening. Not much has changed.