"Exercise is for people who can't handle drugs and alcohol"

That is Lily Tomlin being quoted at the beginning of chapter 3 in Dean Karnazes's Run! 26.2 Stories of Blisters and Bliss. I got the Kindle version last night just by chance as it was very cheap, 2 pounds. It's the second runners kind of book a read lately that is not a training manual or a nutrition book, although this is different from the first one.

The first one, about which I've been thinking of writing for a while, was Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Murakami's is an autobiography as a kind of memoir from a writer who has been running for as long as he has been writing. I enjoyed reading it. Karnaze's, although I've only read three chapters, is different as it is made of short stories, twenty six of them, one for every mile in a marathon. It seems like a collection of thoughts and anecdotes which makes it different from Murakami's as he is using running and his running history as an excuse to write about himself and his own personal history.

But today I want to write about what Karnaze's writes on his third story, the so called runner's high. According to wikipedia neuroscientists have no clear evidence on what it is that is responsible for that high, and this is of course only anecdotal and personal experience, but it's true that after I have run or after I have had an exercise session that taxes my body next to what I estimate are it's limits I feel what I, from my total lack of experience with drugs other than love or coffee, can only describe as a high. I am not entirely sure about the biochemistry underlying it, it may be endorphins or it maybe something different but as far as my personal experience is concerned, I can confirm it happens(whatever it is, the underlying mechanism must be biochemical because it happens in my brain and everything happening there is biochemistry(although I admit that I'm just playing with the words, cloaking everything under the name of biochemistry and just going on, but hey, I may as well claim it to be quantum mechanical and I'd still be right, but, at least in this particular case, it's not about me being right)).

Does it create an addiction? Do I feel withdrawal symptoms if I don't run? My answer is affirmative to the later and as for the former, I'll quote Karnazes's "Yes, so what of it?". That is what I told my mum when, I find it very ironic as she smokes and smokes a lot, warned me the other day with the wise phrase "be careful, that may become addictive". But I guess that suits my personality very well, I think I can become a very passionate and focused person if I feel like it(that is not necessarily all good and can, as it has in the past, backfire though). And that endorphins kick I get after some miles or some laps in the pool or lifting my ass up a wall is what makes me go back to my running shoes and also is responsible for part of my misery and grumpiness on the days I don't or a I can't run or exercise.

Yesterday was my day off and that and some other reasons made it not the best day, that's why today, with hopefully rested legs(the only reason why I did not run yesterday is because I could hardly run 7 km on Tuesday and at a very slow pace) I'll try to get some miles under the belt as I'm anticipating I'll need them this afternoon or more accurately I'll need those endorphins.