Runner's High (not my story)

Runner’s High
A true story about how less is more.
Ever heard of runner’s high? Basically, these people (for instance my sister) go out and jog around town for godawful distances, get completely sweaty, worn out, totally out of breath, and claim that they love every second of it.
And normal people are thinking, “Uh-huh. Honey, you’re just telling yourself that. You’re anorexic: I mean, you’re not 50 pounds overweight like a real American, so there’s got to be something wrong with you.”
Or for men its, “Yeah, you’re a tough guy. Very impressive.” -eye roll-
What makes these freaks tick?
—
I ran cross country once. It was ten years ago. Every day after school I got together with the most unfocused, irresponsible athletic team that the High School gave recognition to, and we ran long distances. It was terrible. You wheeze, you gasp, your chest hurts, your legs hurt, and if you try to push too hard you can actually make yourself dizzy.
The races were more of the same. Actually they were about three times as bad, because in the excitement of the race you start out running at a completely unsustainable speed. Within the first mile, you have completely run out of oxygen, slowed to a staggering jog, and then you have to hold on and finish the 3.1 mile race. My normal racing time was about 23 minutes, but it might as well have been an hour.
On my best day, I decided to go for broke. I figured it was a mental game. I ran hard and did my best to ignore the pain. It took every ounce of concentration I was capable of. It hurt like hell. If memory serves, I ran a 21:58.
I didn’t make the mistake of doing a second season. Actually I almost did. I showed up for the first “captain’s practice” a few weeks before school began. I went out with them and rediscovered how much I hated running. I didn’t show up again.
After that, I went running a couple of times a year, out of guilt about my sedentary lifestyle. Every time I did, I would draw from my cross country experience: run fast enough that it hurts, and run to exhaustion. Its no big surprise that I was never able to establish a regular fitness routine. All I knew how to do was destroy my body with as much abuse as it could take.
—
In college one time, a friend and I decided to get in shape. We would do a jog around and then lift weights in the gym. I’m not sure how long that lasted, maybe a week? We didn’t stick with it. But something funny happened toward the end that I didn’t think about too carefully.
My friend, you see, wasn’t too enthusiastic about running. I wasn’t too enthusiastic about weight lifting. So we were helping each other out. As a result the runs we went on were pretty easy for me. After a week of easy runs, I felt an urge to run. He told me I was crazy and running was awful. I went out in the evening alone and ran around a track. The sun was long gone, and it was dark and cool.
It felt wonderful. I wasn’t even tempted to keep track of the distance. I just ran around and around, and felt great. I didn’t question it. I just enjoyed it and then walked back to the dorm. We didn’t exercise together again.
—
Last year around March I got it into my head that I would start running. Sometime in the previous year a friend of ours had recounted some parts of the book Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner, by Dean Karnazes. I had to admit it was pretty cool. Here’s a guy who runs races far longer than marathons. We’re talking 50, 100, even 200 miles. Ultramarathons. Insane races. Insanely cool. It was inspiring.
I started talking about running a marathon, even though I had never run more than about 6 miles without completely collapsing. And that was after many weeks of practice with the High School team.
I meant to run a couple times a week, with a long run on saturday, starting at about 4 miles and increasing by a quarter mile each week. After a week or so, I had lost interest in my short runs. When my long runs hit 5.25 miles, they were brutal. The studying season for my exams started in earnest, and I seized on a good excuse to quit altogether.
I had made a nice spreadsheet to keep track of my runs, so I noted the few additional times I went out. It came to about 5 runs, 2 miles each, over the next year.
—
That brings us to March of 2008. My sister the runner told me she was doing a 5 mile race in June to get back in shape after having her first baby. The winter was finally over, the weather was inviting, and I was feeling bad about being out of shape. Alright, I said, I’ll do the race with you. I’ll just run “to finish.” Meaning, I’ll just try to finish the race without walking.
After all, I’ve been sitting on my butt for 10 years. I could use the exercise, right?
We talked about this while visiting my parents. My dad is a runner too, and he was going to be in the same race. Its a fun thing to do for family members. I have some other relatives that would be in the race as well, at least one uncle and couple cousins. I’m not sure. We’re a running family. That’s the only reason I ever tried running in the first place.
Before I took my family home from my parents’, I borrowed the Complete Book of Running, a book put out by Runner’s World Magazine. Somehow after all my bad experiences, I was still optimistic about running.
—
So I read the book from Runner’s World Magazine, faster than I expected. In an amazing coincidence, it mentioned in passing the training approach developed by a man I already knew, Tom Osler! I knew him as Dr. Osler, phD, the greatest Mathematics teacher I’ve ever encountered and probably the singular nicest person I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. I had no idea he was well known in the running world.
I got online and found used copies of Ultramarathon Man and Dr. Osler’s book, the Serious Runner’s Handbook. I gobbled them up, and I ran…
The long and the short of it is, I figured out what I was doing wrong. I was running way, WAY too hard! And I don’t just mean that I was discouraging myself. Running that hard all the time is not healthy or particularly helpful. If I had had the willpower to keep it up, I would have ended up causing myself a lot of illness and injuries. Luckily my body was able to imprint upon my subconscious the message “Cut out this nonsense!”
Running the right way is easy. Osler actually recommends you finish EVERY training run feeling as if you could turn around and run the same distance over again!
The human body is an amazing machine. Give it a little bit of stimulation, and it will adapt and grow and improve. But give it serious levels of stress, and it will concentrate on survival. If you tell you body you have a compelling reason to perform at near 100% of capacity, it will respond and go all-out. It will go beyond the bounds of safety and good health. As Osler says, when you push your body to the limit in training, your extra speed doesn’t mean you are in better health. You are becoming faster at the expense of your health. On the other hand, continued exposure to mild amounts of stress will stimulate increased ability at a remarkable clip.
Its so counter-intuitive that I still have trouble believing it. I still push myself a little too hard. Its almost too much to believe that by doing easy runs and holding back from using all my energy, I can actually get more benefit from training, not to mention avoiding the agony that has caused me to quit running over and over again in the past.
A few weeks after starting out, I’m doing about 24 miles a week and going longer all the time.
The psychological benefits are perhaps the greatest part. Not only am I getting faster and fitter every week, but for the first time in my life, I love to run. I look forward to my runs. I probably spend more time thinking about running than I do actually running. And when I get back from a long run, out of breath and sweating hard, with my legs aching and weary, I feel awesome. Especially in my legs. I call it having “happy legs.” Some people call it runner’s high.
I’ve become one of those people. I’m a runner.
—
Most of the people reading this are probably like I was. You’ve gone running before, and it sucked. You hated it. Maybe you kept it up for a while for the sake of exercise, but you never learned to enjoy it.
You’re doing it wrong! You’re going to too fast, running too far, and pushing too hard.
Do an easy run. Do a cakewalk run. Do an embarrassingly easy run. Go for frequency. Do a cakewalk run six times a week and see if you feel like taking it farther. Wait until you want it. Don’t increase your distance until you finish a run wanting to go farther. Alternate long and short distances, and don’t push yourself to exhaustion until you enjoy running so much that you are doing it for the sheer pleasure of it. Oh, and make sure you get a decent pair of running shoes. Blisters are to be expected occasionally, but your feet shouldn’t feel beat up every time you finish a run.
Frankly, you don’t have any good excuse not to do this. You will be healthier, feel better about yourself, lose weight, and have more mental energy.
I can almost guarantee your library has a copy of the Runner’s World book. You really need to read this book, especially if you’re running by yourself without a more experienced friend or coach.
You can do it! And I know you will love it.