What is it about marathoners that they have to tell you they run marathons?
Something about running marathons makes you want to tell other people you run marathons.
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“Hi, I’d like to order a pizza. I’m starving after running that marathon.”
“I’m Joe. I’d like to apply for a job. I run marathons.”
Marathons, Marathons, MARATHONS! The only way you are even considered remotely physically active is if you run a half-marathon before breakfast.
Why do these fitness folks love marathons so much? It could be because they are getting high, a “runner’s high.”
For years, people have believed that the feel-good moment after exercising, the “runner’s high,” was the result of endorphins.
Endorphins are great. WebMD says: “Endorphins act as analgesics, which means they diminish the perception of pain. They also act as sedatives. They are manufactured in your brain, spinal cord, and many other parts of your body and are released in response to brain chemicals called neurotransmitters.” So by creating endorphins, you get the same benefits of pain medication, without the risk of addiction or dependency.
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The problem with that theory is that endorphins are too large to pass through the divider in your brain that creates the “high.”
So a bunch of German scientists decided to study the effects of exercise on the brain, hoping to catch whatever makes that so sought after high that runners feel.
They found that the brain also produces, “endocannabinoids, which are a naturally synthesized version of THC, the chemical responsible for the buzz that marijuana produces.” (according to Runnersworld.com)
Yup, all the runners who tell you how great running are doing the same thing that some pot smokers are doing, trying to convince people to get high with them.
RunnersWorld even has some recommendations to find that runners high sweet spot: try “running at 70 to 85 percent of your age-adjusted maximum heart rate is optimal in spiking the primary stress hormone cortisol, and producing endocannabinoids. (If you’re 30, you’d aim for between 142 and 161 beats per minute.)”
The good news is no state has outlawed running. So this high is totally legal in all 50 United States.
