Puzzle complete, Xterra Triathlon - not so much

Ok, so I finally finished the puzzle.

And I may have become a little obsessed :)

I tried putting time restrictions on myself. 

Ann, you can only do it while you're eating your cereal in the morning. Well then I'd milk my cereal... pun intended. 

So then I made myself a deal about the number of pieces I could put in before I had to walk away. 

Well some days 10 pieces would take me 10 minutes or less and others it would take an hour... 

(And Lord knows if I got 10 pieces in 10 minutes I'd always bargain with myself for a few more since I was clearly on my A game that morning)

I'd set out to do something around the house and inevitably my feet carried me back to the puzzle table to just finish that "one section"...

Well... I tried my hand at an XTERRA triathlon on Sunday and the mountain bike course basically ate me alive. 

I did just get my mountain bike about a month ago, and I've only ridden it a few times, and I got the call last monday asking if I wanted to do the race 6 days later...

I was in way over my head and crashed trying to be "courageous", not sure if that's the right word... or if I was just sick of walking my bike over every part I thought looked a little too "technical" or "terrifying". 

Later, I learned that it might be one of the most technical/difficult mountain bike courses... 

This is what I found out... after...

"IMBA (International Mountain Bike Association) gives the trails at Curt Gowdy an 'Epic' rating.  After riding them today I realize that by 'Epic' they mean 'Apocalyptic'.  Jonny rates them 'Crazy Technical'.

"Time for some input on Xterra Curt Gowdy bike course.
OK...I agree that it's not mountain biking unless there's blood, but . . .  I rode the course last week and all I can say, prepare for carnage. There's "IMBA advanced" and there's "Xterra advanced" and that is one major difficult, technical and long course. Beginners are gonna freak."

Well... I am a beginner, it did draw blood, but I like to think I didn't "freak"... Although I wish I would have had a GoPro if only so that I could share with you my running commentary... ha

Not surprising... I took a spill and banged up my shin and my knee pretty badly so it needed a good icing yesterday. 

Unfortunately... I didn't finish. After hobbling through a few more miles after my wreck, to reach civilization, I knew my knee wasn't going to fare well on the run, and that was if I could make it through the rest of the bike course...

Well, you can imagine that I was very willing to ice as long as needed, and maybe longer, because it justified just sitting down doing my puzzle. Something I was determined to finish, especially because of the events the day before. However, I am a little torn because I've been perusing the thrift stores in search of the next puzzle and I haven't really found anything I love... I hope I don't feel too empty without another one to work on... yet :)

And so here it is.

But after all that work I'm not exactly motivated to tear it all a part and move on. 

How long do you enjoy a puzzle after you've finished it?