I am a bad runner. OK, maybe not “bad”. I get out there, I do it. But I am slow and plodding. I’ll bargain with myself to just run a short 3km. The farthest I have ever run is 6km – and it happened because I was heading to a pub at the other end.
One of the things they try to sell you on when you start running is “runner’s high”: that magical sense of euphoria you get from really pushing your body. It’s dangled as a carrot in front of all of the terrible runs you will have to do to get any good at running. Keep doing this, they say, and you’ll experience that extraordinary phenomenon.
I’ve never run fast enough, or far enough, to get even close to experiencing runner’s high. But I have experienced something which, while perhaps less sensational, is nonetheless its own buzz – runner’s smugness.
I’ve been running now for four years. I had tried to become a runner before, downloading the Couch to 5K app after reading Bella Mackie’s book Jog On, about how running helped her anxiety. I thought maybe this was something that could help my anxiety, too. But it didn’t stick. It felt impossible to jog for a whole minute. To add to that there were just too many other, less horrible-feeling, things I could be doing.
That changed with Covid lockdowns. Suddenly I had too much time – and increasing anxiety that I needed to get on top of. So I reopened the app and started running again. I’m not even certain why I owned running shoes (cheap as they obviously were, with no real support or structure), but I did, and I would put them on for those impossible-seeming one-minute intervals.
Over time I got better. I could run for a minute, no problems. Then three, then five, then eight. Finally, I did it: I reached the 5km mark. It was slow. I almost certainly stopped several times. I got home and collapsed straight into an armchair. But I’d done it. Smug.
The science is slightly fuzzy on what causes runner’s high. For a long time it was believed to be due to a release of endorphins – hormones that increase our sense of wellbeing. But research in 2021 pointed the finger in another direction, towards the release of endocannabinoids, our body’s own versions of THC and CBD, which act on the same receptors as these drugs.
But what actually does cause runner’s high is, for me, moot. I don’t run fast enough, or far enough, for that magical drop of hormones or cannabinoids, for that sense of euphoria. My short, slow runs are pure labour, more about getting one foot in front of the other than any real athletic prowess. I stop and walk frequently. It’s about the destination, not the journey.
I was once chasing this high. But now I am more content with the fact that, despite no longer thinking I will ever achieve it, I keep getting out there and running anyway.
Over the years I have been running I have noticed a difference in myself: when I am exercising consistently, my anxiety is lower overall. The achievement isn’t in that one particular run. The achievement is in all the little ways these runs will add up over time to make me feel genuinely more comfortable in my body. And when I’m dealing with a particularly anxious day, running can help me get out of my head – or, at the very least, give me something else to do for half an hour.
And so there lies the smugness: I did something. I managed to put on my sneakers and my running outfit, and I left the house for 30 minutes – and I ran. How many other people ran today? OK, probably a lot, and probably a lot better than me. But how many people didn’t run today? Most people. But I did. Smug.
When I travel for work and my colleagues catch me on an early morning run? Smug. When someone calls me and I have to apologise for being out of breath because I’m on a run? Smug. I’ve increased my speed from ridiculously slow to just incredibly slow? Smug.
For me, running isn’t about the euphoria. It’s about the small, everyday achievement of doing something I know will make me feel better in the long run. It gets me out of my house and out of my head, and feeling smug about those little feats is enough.
Jane Howard is a Walkley-award winning arts journalist and the arts and culture editor at the Conversation
