Finding Runner's High

It's been a bit of time since I have had time to publish on here, which is too bad because I had one of my most exciting experiences ever. I went for about 5 miles a couple of weekends ago. And while I paid for it later, I will say it was well worth it. My knees were actually inflamed by the end of the day. In my inexperienced opinion, I must have been doing something wrong, something incorrectly with my form.

That was a fair price to pay for the exhilarating experience that is Runner's High. My friend Will got me to push myself yet again. I was really worried and afraid to go for 5 miles because it sounded intimidating but more than anything I didn't want to be lame and slow Will down.Fortunately he's very good at dealing with my rookie-ness. This allowed me to push past mile 1, then uphill onto mile 2, then down hill for mile 3 and then... boom!! There it was. I remember thinking "I feel good, I'm feeling pretty good right now" then I just kept going. I told Will, "I'm feeling pretty good right now, it feels easy, effortless, like I'm not really working." He called it Runner's Zen, which sounds cooler, however it really was more of a high for me. The endorphins kicking in, the excitement of seeing the high at work, not believing what you're feeling.

The best way I can describe it is like this: Imagine you have just pushed your body to exhaustion, it's getting pretty hard to convince yourself that you can put one foot in front of the other when suddenly... you don't know why or how, but your body has taken over. It's not only moving, but it's running; and at a pretty decent pace at that. It's as easy as walking, too. Your brain is on happy juices, you just feel good, but it's not all mental. It's not all in your head. It really is happening physically, your body really is on a high and working at a different level.

As humans, we are capable of so much but we are always afraid and never push ourselves far enough. We always believe are capable of less than we really are. Imagine a long stretch of road with a wall erected about a quarter of the way into the road, you don't want to run to the wall because it's hard getting to it and because you're afraid you won't be able to get over it anyway. What you don't know is that you can climb that wall, and as soon as you do there's all this strength just waiting for you. All this power just waiting to be discovered and used by you, and there's so much of it. That's Runner's High. That's what Runner's High makes you feel. I challenge you to climb that wall and find this strength I'm speaking of. It's there, and it's yours.