#runforthe

As I stopped running competitively in high school and went to college, I started to run more as a social and maintenance event. I did it to stay in shape so I could continue to indulge my massive diet. What I’ve learned through running for all of these different reasons is that the results stay the same. I can always set a goal and hold myself to it and complete it. I can always feel great after a run. That’s why I run.

This article and the NY times article both agree with each other and I love how they both talked about how running impacts the brain, but didn't mention the other one’s topic at all. This just goes to show how deeply connected running and our brains are and how deeply running impacts our brains, and the rest of our lives.

I don't run much during the dreary Washington winters, but when the sun starts to come out in the spring I can't help it- I have to get outside! I admit that being a seasonal runner is not the best for my year round conditioning, but I just hate going outside and running in the winter. It just pierces my lungs and my throat with the cold air and my muscles just feel so much achier after. I wonder if the authors of the Huff Post article have observed these weird things too, or if I'm just crazy. 

Eating is a huge stress reliever for me, and I realize that may not be the healthiest, but it really works for me. I wonder what the authors of the Seeker video and the Endurancemag article would think when they heard this.

This article really resonates with me personally. After my junior year of high school, during the summer I had a job so I couldn't run with my cross country team and I wasn’t really planning on putting in much effort for the next year and was planning on focusing on school. But something clicked and made me realize how much I missed running. So, I ran on my own time, and it was really a grind. But I kept pushing myself to get better and setting higher and higher goals for myself, and by the time school came around again, I had improved more than I had at any other point in my life! The satisfaction of that outweighed the daily grind over the summer, and that’s what mattered. And that is exactly what this author is speaking about and I love it. I wonder if the producer of the VOX video, who ran a marathon, shares the same feelings about running the author of this article and I do.

I love how this article and the NY Times article both mention the runner’s high. NY Times goes a little more into the science behind it, but they both arrive at the same conclusion. I think the author of this article and the producer of the VOX video on running would have a very interesting conversation on running and how it affects you. Although the author of this article eventually comes to the conclusion that running is good for you, they give out a large amount of bad things about running too. The producer of the VOX video had nothing bad to say about running and really liked it. 

I think that what we get out of running can be traced back to why we do it. If someone runs for fun, then they might run for a feeling of euphoria, or for a good view at the end of their run. If someone runs competitively/for their job, then what they want out of it is to get better. If someone runs socially, then they want social connections or a good time out of it. The common thing amongst all of these different is the feeling of satisfaction of accomplishing these goals. 

You may notice this as the profile photo of my blog, but it is the viewpoint from the top of my favorite run! it takes about 5 miles to get up there, so by the end of the run, I’m pretty gassed and sometimes I get a runners high after it. Now I totally agree with the Endurancemag article on running, but for most of the runs I do now, all I think about is just the things that are going on in my life and that is when I can sort all of those things out, and the author didn't really discuss this much. Now resiliency and motivation are big parts of running, but for me, being able to be alone with yourself is also quite valuable to me. People that run with headphones in blasting music don't really get a chance to experience that, so I wonder if people who do that, gain less mentally from their runs.