Runners Low

To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

I'm not sure if Sir Isaac Newton was a runner, so I have my doubts that this law of motion has anything to do with the sport. However, I think he may have been on to something. His wisdom goes beyond just the world science and other things I don't understand.

I have been running for a relatively short time, maybe two years. In that time I have experienced the highs, the lows, and the in-betweens of the sport. I have struggled to make what is often the most difficult step for a runner, that first step out the door. I have run until the point where everything hurts and both succumbed to it and overcome it. And then, of course, there is that elusive runner's high.

Now, some will argue that runner's high is nothing more than a state of mind. Others attest to it being an actual physiological response. I say both. The physiological response for me comes when I cross the finish line. That, of course, fades and the comedy/pain of trying to put one foot in front of the other begins. Those who have been to the finish line of a race have borne witness to this.

Then there is the mental runner's high. Emphasis on mental because what I attempt to do in the days following a race are just that - mental. Buoyed by my accomplishment I will (sometimes) get back to pounding the pavement much to soon and my body and my mind are worlds apart. In my mind's eye I am an olympian, but my body is telling me I'm nothing more than a weekend warrior.

Until recently this was, in a nutshell, all that I had experienced in running. I can now add a new experience to that list - runner's low. The Newtonian definition of it might read something like this, "when you sign up for a race and don't do it because you got lazy and go to the finish line only to regret not doing it because you see everyone so happy and you wish you were one of them." That summarizes my Around The Bay 2011 experience. I signed up and didn't do it. And after seeing everyone crossing the finish line that will also be the only time I ever do something like that again. Strangely, I wanted to be one of the fraternity struggling to walk after running for 3 hrs. But I wasn't. I was on the outside looking in. And it wasn't a very picturesque view for me.

On that day, for me, there was an action and equal and opposite reaction. A runner's high which I didn't experience and a runner's low which I did.