runner's high is the real thing

Great story in the nytimes.com fitness and nutrition section about runner's high: experiments proving that euphoric feeling we get after hard exercise (not just running) is the real deal.

The runner’s-high hypothesis proposed that there were real biochemical effects of exercise on the brain. Chemicals were released that could change an athlete’s mood, and those chemicals were endorphins, the brain’s naturally occurring opiates. Running was not the only way to get the feeling; it could also occur with most intense or endurance exercise.

The problem with the hypothesis was that it was not feasible to do a spinal tap before and after someone exercised to look for a flood of endorphins in the brain. Researchers could detect endorphins in people’s blood after a run, but those endorphins were part of the body’s stress response and could not travel from the blood to the brain. They were not responsible for elevating one’s mood. So for more than 30 years, the runner’s high remained an unproved hypothesis.

But now medical technology has caught up with exercise lore. Researchers in Germany, using advances in neuroscience, report in the current issue of the journal Cerebral Cortex that the folk belief is true: Running does elicit a flood of endorphins in the brain. The endorphins are associated with mood changes, and the more endorphins a runner’s body pumps out, the greater the effect.

Now, having just recently involuntarily taken eight days away from training while suffering the flu, I know that it doesn't take enormous amounts of endorphins to boost the mood after exercise. Just doing the "easing back in" workouts this week has definitely contributed to my feeling happier. Not just the "thank goodness I'm no longer sick" happiness, but "wow, it's good to get out and on the road again!" happiness.

And we're just ten days from the race before the real high hits.