Runner's High On Demand

A Story of Luck & Persistence

I can get runner’s high on demand. It takes about 15 minutes of jogging at a pace of 6-7 kph and a heart rate of around 140 bpm. I need to be hungry but not starving. And my body has to otherwise be doing fine.

The ability unlocked rather suddenly for me and I’m not sure why it did. However, people have told me they’d like to hear the story so they can try to achieve the same, so here goes.

Beeping Terrible at Running

I was not athletic as a teenager. Sports interested me roughly zero percent. But then one day, 16 year old me walked in to my high school gym class and was subjected to the beep test. Though I wish this was about moderating curse words, it’s actually about running 20 meters before you hear a beep. And that beep keeps coming faster. And faster. And faster.

And so did my breath - much to my dismay.

I was the first kid in my year to flunk out of the test.

Well, technically I was the second.

The other kid was born with a major anomoly in her heart valve while my body was - to my knowledge - roughly of standard issue and functionality.

What a wake-up call.

That week I started running in my free time. I followed those little running schedules, where you start jogging for one minute and get a two minute rest. I joined the local athletics group, where you do a warm up of two laps around the track (800 meters). Except I couldn’t even finish one.

But …

After two months I could manage my team’s warm up routine.

After three months I could run for five minutes in a row.

And after twelve months, I had made no further progress.

To make matters worse, running was just kind of excruciating, and jesus fucking hell why was I doing this? Everyone says running is good for you so shouldn’t this start feeling good at some point, but actually it still just feels terrible, but I have a lot of disciple so I am just gonna tough it out cause having any aerobic fitness seems important!

The years after that I tried different running schedules. Running was the cheapest and lowest effort workout I could find, so even though I didn’t enjoy it, I did keep coming back to it grudgingly time and time again. In practice this meant I’d maybe run three times a week for three months a year, and then give up again till I felt that maybe I was going to crack it this time afterall.

This went on for about 12 years.

HIITing a Limit Break

I did other work outs too. Mostly going to the gym. My fitness levels were nothing special. Low reps, low weights, 10-15 minutes of cardio. I was fit enough to be comfortable in my body but my athletic achievements in no way surpassed those of someone who simply didn’t have a sedentary job in the first place.

Then one day I switched gyms to the same one as my sister. She was, and is, far more athletic than me. At the time she was doing these HIIT classes, which are basically short workouts near your maximum heart rate. She wanted me to join. I didn’t think I’d do well. She said that would be fine. I apparently relented for reasons I can’t entirely fathom anymore.

Cause, dear reader, it was friggin murder.

You’d do two laps around the track, with one five minute break in between. The track had 12 exercises, each hitting a different body part. You’d then do the given exercise for one minute at your maximum capacity, then you’d get a 30 second break, and then you’d go to the next one.

It was squats, it was planks, it was frog leaps, it was lunges, it was hitting a punching bag till your arms fell off.

The instructor was telling us to go HARDER. To give it our ALL. That PAIN IS GOOD.

After the first session my vision went black, I lay on the floor, and was distantly debating the possibility of puking my guts out. But that would require moving. And surely it could not be the case that I could ever move again, right?

My sister was impressed. The instructor brought me sugar water and electrolytes. After 15 minutes I was fine.

Two days later I did it again - with the same result.

I did six sessions: three times a week for two weeks.

On the third week, my sister didn’t show up. I can’t remember why. I dreaded the HIIT training. I’m not even sure why I kept doing it in the first place. Sometimes I do things I deeply hate cause I’m curious what will happen. But I sure as hell wasn’t gonna do that particular thing without my sister there telling me it was a great idea, and good for me, and it would be fine.

So instead I got on one of those human conveyor belts at the gym, and started my warming up for my regular rote and comfy workout routine. Normally I’d jog for 10 minutes and hate every second of it - It’s unpleasant but it’s good for you. Eat your vegetables.

But then the ten minutes past and I felt fine. I felt like I had gone for a walk to the grocery store. (ha! ok, European here. That’s a 2 minute walk. Sorry, reference frame error).

So I kept going.

10 minutes and I was fine.

20 minutes and I felt great.

30 minutes and I was euphoric.

40 minutes and I was wondering how long this could possibly last.

50 minutes and I figured I’d actually want to do something else with my life again at some point.

60 minutes and I was done. I could go on forever, but why bother? I felt great and could apparently run for infinite amounts of time - or something.

Literally from that day - 10 years ago - I’ve been able to hit runner’s high after roughly 15 minutes, provided I’m mildly hungry when I start and my body is otherwise ok. If I don’t work out for a few months, I need about two to four weeks of running three times a week to get back to being able to do an hour run. This has even be true after two pregnancies and their respective post-partum recoveries.

So why did I unlock this ability?

I don’t know …

I never wrote this up before because it just seemed too weird. But maybe it helps people to know it’s possible for this to happen to any human ever.

A List of Reasons of Questionable Relevance

Even though I’m not sure what made this all work for me, it might be useful to get more context if you want to try and replicate it. Obviously, the HIIT training was the key that unlocked my runner’s high on demand. But my guess is that there were necessary preconditions that I met before I went through that two week ordeal.

So here are 8 factors that may matter:

1. Athletic Childhood - Between age 5 and 10 I was the top three pick for any sports team in my school. I ran a lot though I never experienced runners high. I favored sprinting and couldn’t run long distances. And then the fire nation attacked puberty hit, and I couldn’t be bothered to move my body on purpose ever again. I’m not sure if childhood athleticism lays some sort of physiological groundwork for adult athleticism. If it does, then I probably had it.

2. No Health Issues - I have a basically healthy body, so no risk factors from attempting the intensive HIIT training.

3. Ideal Pace - Years of trying to make running good had already taught me my ideal pace and ideal state for workouts: Heart rate of about 140 bpm, kind of hungry but not starving, and a very slow pace. I tend to jog at 6-7 kpm. That is slooooooow. My guess is that bodies have an ideal pace. Yours may be higher than mine. It can hardly be lower than mine cause then you are going backward walking.

4. Technique - I knew proper running technique from the two years of athletics training I did as a teen. If you don’t know what I’m talking about and you want to attempt to discover runner’s high for yourself, I highly recommend going through a beginner’s running course. It’s very easy to damage your joints from bad technique, and unless you’ve been running continuously since childhood, you will have bad technique. Injuries are a known cause of lack of runner’s high.

5. Good Gear - I’ve always worn high quality running shoes custom selected through gait analysis at specialized running stores. On the other hand, maybe barefoot running suits you better. Either way, I would avoid low quality or non-running footwear.

6. Protein - I was drinking protein shakes within 20 minutes of each HIIT class.

7. Energy - I ate high fat, high carb, high protein food. I wasn’t trying to lose weight.

8. Healthy Habits - I was sleeping enough, getting all my vitamins, and I didn’t drink or smoke or have other unhealthy hobbies - unless you count video games. There were so many video games.

So there you have it. Runner’s high on demand is possible, even if you never experienced it before and running is hell for you. I’m not sure why this would replicate, but who knows? Sample size of n = 1 is at least an existence proof. If any of this ends up working for you, I’d love to hear about it. Good luck <3