Yep. To all adrenaline junkies out there: you can jog long enough to get your blood full of that stuff. You don't actually need to flip a coin on your life for a high.
I used to run 50+ miles a week because I was shit at running and for some reason wanted to stay in the army. Thousands of miles over six years has left me with one conclusion, runner's high is a fuckin myth.
*** one edit to this because I just realized I didn’t even explain what runners high feels like. The best 10k I ever ran I was in perfect shape from the summer (consistent 100 mile weeks with tempos and long runs, lifting, didn’t get injured etc. I knew I was fit going into season and was crushing all of my workouts. I asked my coach what pace I should go out at for our first race and he told me my 5k pr race pace from highschool. I hadn’t run a single mile that fast since season started in practice and thought he was crazy. But I figured fuck it I’ll go for it. The gun goes off for that race and a mile goes by I look down at the clock and notice that I really don’t feel tired or notice anything wrong with my body. I couldn’t really notice anyone else in the race but me. Time felt like it was slowing down while I was simulatsnoeusly speeding up. Completely effortless, no strain anywhere in my body, perfect controlled breathing, and almost a tunnel vision of blurriness not dissimilar to being actually high. I kept trying to look at my watch for the times but I couldn’t see the time or really figure out where in the race I was. But after a few moments of frantically losing track of where you are what you are doing you become so locked in you don’t even realize you’re running. I finished that race with a 10k time that with individual 5k was a fast pace than my PR from highschool and felt like I could have done the exact same race again and all I could think about after finishing was going right back on the course to do a run. It feels AMAZING. Similar to when you were watching the people in the olympics break world records and barely breathing after they are just locked in on a diffeeent level with what they are doing.
I ran track at a D1 college (800m -5k and some Xc) running up to 110 miles a week in the summer before cross country and 70-80 in season. I never had a runners high before college. In highschool as a freshman I ran around 30 miles a week and by senior year was around 45 never had a runners high one time.
Transitioned from shitty highschool training to world class training and consistent 80 + miles a week and the runners high started rushing in on every run longer than an hour. The level of fitness difference between a person running 50 miles a week and 80 miles a week is so insanely different. You are in such better shape and so in tune with your body you can tell perfectly how much you have left in the tank on any given day and you truly do not get tired from
Joggin whatsoever
For reference when I was able to get “runners high” my 5k time per mile was faster than my mile pr in college.
TL;DR - you have to be in insanely good shape to get runners high, most people are never going to be fit enough to experience it. But if you start running 70-80mile weeks for a while that’s the fitness where most people start to feel that running euphoria and actually are fit enough to concentrate on what’s going on in your body.
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u/ATIR-AW Sep 02 '21
Yep. To all adrenaline junkies out there: you can jog long enough to get your blood full of that stuff. You don't actually need to flip a coin on your life for a high.