Almost Addicted To Stopping?

   Fortunately, and for your information, I am not addicted to drugs or alcohol. I've also managed to avoid addiction to gambling, sex, shoplifting, extreme sports, bingo and reality T.V.

Well...not always...

   What I possibly may be addicted to, however, is stopping.
   Basically, stopping feels so damn good, pretty well every time you do it. Your legs and lungs are burning, your mind is giving way, your motivation has completely dried up under the heat and so you stop.
   If things have gone according to plan, your reason for stopping is because you've reached the end of your run. This is the most addictive kind of stopping I can think of but, unfortunately, it's not the only one.
   For me, there are occasionally times in the middle of a run when I've found myself calling it quits, unexpectedly. Sometimes I'll take a bit of a breather, climb back up on the horse (would that it were a real horse!) and keep on motoring. Every so often, however, I'm done, like toast.
   There was a time when I scheduled walk breaks into my runs. For better or worse, those days are over--when I start a run I expect to complete the whole thing without walk breaks. The farthest I run these days is 5k and I should really be able to run one of these in my sleep almost.
   There are days when, for reasons I'm not always able to pinpoint, I just don't have all the necessities for completing a run. I go over the usual culprits--poor fuelling, lack of sleep, misuse of rest days, etc.--and none of them seem to apply. I just stop.
   Don't get me wrong, I don't stop lightly. Stopping, to me, almost equates with failed run. And if I've already gone to the trouble of running til I'm exhausted then it's really annoying to have to call that a failed run.
  

But stopping feels so GOOD...

When the urge to stop hits, I will then play head games with myself to take my mind off the urge. I'll pick some point off in the distance and tell myself that I'll re-evaluate my need to stop when I reach it. I will remind myself of people important to me who would give almost everything they had just to be able to walk, let alone run. I'll think about the high of a successful run. I'll maybe even try and recall motivational posters I've seen on the internet.
   This past week, I had one run where I had to employ almost all of these in order to keep on running. I can only imagine that I went through a similar process that any junkie goes through when provided a temptation. I used every trick I knew of to not stop and then I used every rationalization I could think of to justify stopping ie. I was risking injury, I'd already run pretty far, it was hotter than I'm used to, I've stopped before so what's the big deal if I do it again.
   Two or three times I was able to shake the urge to stop by playing mind games with myself and then, without warning, I simply stopped. I actually took myself by surprise with this. Then, having stopped, I couldn't start back up again. The thing is, it felt so freakin' good and better than a lot of other things I can name.
   All of this would bother me a lot but for one thing--in order to want to stop so bad, I need to exert myself way beyond my normal comfort level. When you stop to think about it, is this a bad thing? Probably not!
   It has occurred to me in a whimsical moment that, since I enjoy stopping so much, I should just go out some day and run way faster than I normally do so that I reach that exhaustion threshold and then stop, totally for the joy of stopping. I could then do this all over again. And again, trying to maximize all the stopping I enjoy so much. As weird as that sounds in my head, what it really amounts to is a structured running workout. Sort of like...what's the word?...oh yeah!....intervals!
   Okay, now I really have something to play mind games with! But, in the meantime, happy and healthy running to you all!