Love, Dedication or Obsession?

Today I had to wonder. Is it that I really love running and riding or am I just obsessed?

View of Pikes Peak from Top of Bob's Trail during Saturday's Run

Last week I stepped up the intensity a bit with big gear hill climbs & tempo runs & rides along with long endurance runs & rides. This week I stepped it up even more. Tuesday morning was a hard 12 mile tempo run with 10 * 15 sec stride outs, followed by a 2+ hour ride in the evening with 50 min tempo. Rode to work on Wednesday but was kind of dragging at work, so didn’t run in the evening. Thursday morning, CRUD hill climb, then rode home from work and added 4 big gear climbs up Flying W. There is nothing like sweating like crazy climbing a hill, then freezing while descending in the cold and dark. Saturday, another epic run with CRUD, running amazing trails with an amazing group on an amazing day. Approximately 22 miles with 5,640 feet of vertical in about 4 ½ hours. Finally on Sunday, I think I went over the edge. I started out with an hour trail run in the morning, then came back and got my mountain bike. Rode for 1 ½ hours until it started snowing and the mud started gumming everything up. Came home and got on the trainer. I really didn’t want to do a long trainer ride, but still wanted to get a long ride. Eventually, I pulled out the “Hardcore 100” Spinerval and started riding. This is basically 5 ½ hours of intervals, starting easy and building in intensity with the last hour being very hard. Many times during the workout I wanted to quit but convinced myself this would make me mentally tough for those 12 – 24 hour races. So I ended up with 1 hour of running and 7 hours on the bike, a long day at the office. It's days like today, slugging through a long hard boring workout that makes me wonder if its love, dedication or obsession. Maybe a combination of the three?

Mon: PM: Run 0.5 hrs barefoot (Vibram 5 Fingers) followed by Strength workout
Tues: AM: Run 1.6 hrs with 10 * 15 sec Strideouts & 30 minute tempo. PM: Bike 2.3 hrs with 50 minute Tempo
Wed: AM: Bike 1.2 hr with high RPM Pedaling.
Thu: AM: Run 1.3 hrs (CRUD Hill Climb) PM: Bike 2.1 hr with 4 * 10 min Big Gear Climbs
Fri: AM: Bike 1.1 hr PM: Run 0.8 hrs
Sat: AM: Run 4.7 hrs (CRUD trail run) (5,640 ft climbing)

Sun: AM: Run 1 hr Bike 7 hrs (Combination MTB & trainer)