Runner's High

I'm sure you've heard it before runner's saying they've experienced the "runner's high". What does that mean exactly?

Most of us go out, do our runs, enjoy it and feel better when it's been accomplished but do we really feel high?

Yesterday I believe that I found that place, the place that you could call the "runner's high". The place where you are finishing up your run and you realize that although you had to DRAG yourself out of bed you are now almost finished and you are running at a great pace and feeling wonderful and could push harder even though this pace is faster than you expected and you still feel good.

Yesterday it felt hard at first, I was tired, didn't want to get up, I was brooding. But I got out there started my run listening to ABBA (yes I said ABBA), and all of a sudden the run had literally come to me (as one wise man once said). I had to watch my pace not to run too fast, now how often does that happen?

The last mile I let myself go and ran hard, fast, and with ease. As if my feet were floating. And when the run was over I was smiling, I had this feeling inside, a light- heartedness and a view of the world that was different from when I began.

And then I took out my beach towel on which I do my stretching, put it on the ground beneath some trees at the park, laid down on my back and stretched while watching the clouds above me. That had the pattern that looks like waves one after another and with the sun coming up they were tinted pink in some places with the blue sky poking through.

I felt giddy. What a great world we live in, how many times are we too busy brooding to notice the beautiful things around us?

I've felt this way on a run before, but it seems to be far and few between as I put more miles under my feet. On days like yesterday when it just comes to you it's great to reflect on all the things you've seen and witnessed while outside in this great world.

And then I had to go to work...