The runners high: Peaceful pounding?

It's the day after 35km and i'm doing alot of thinking/reading about ultra running. Not that 35km is regarded as ultra... but the 60km we will do in 2 months time certainly is.

I just read this article, Ultrarunning ultimate runners high, which talks about the runners high, which the writer believes is even stronger in ultra running. The jury is still out as to which chemical substance causes the high but the strong contenders are still endorphins, dopamine, seratonin, and strangely (or not) the natural cannabis like chemical that our bodies produce. Fascinating.

The writer, an ultra runner, talks about his experience of being in unbearable pain and then being lifted to euphoria. Like a different state of mind.

I'm not sure I experienced this yesterday but i have to say that in some ways while the pain got worse after 20km, I think my mind hit this state where it was telling my body 'this is what we are doing, so shut up and just do it'. It's absolutely mind over body after a few hours of running.

I'm trying hard to remember 6 years ago when we ran our first ultra - the Oxfam 100km trailwalker event. Unfortunatley i have a pretty shocking memory so there isn't much to go on! I know that we did really well for the first 40km or so and were even coming 4th place!

Here we are coming into one of the checkpoints. About 37km in. What i seem to remember is that we were feeling pretty darn good at this stage and it's from here that things got progressively harder. But i also think that after another 20-30km of things getting harder they kind of leveled out. I think one thing that helps at this stage is the strange peacefullness of the pounding. The above article talks about this too. You get to a stage where nothing else really matters. Your body just needs to keep going in some sort of forward motion. But other than that, your mind almost becomes emptyed out. You don't remember other stressors going on in your life, you forget about work and other committments. It's relaxing - in a bizzare form!

An integral part of ultra training is running back to back's on the weekend. It helps your body prepare for running on very sore legs. Thus far i've been very slack on this front. But with the email last week confirming out entry i've decided to get my AintoG and do it today. A short 6-7km will bring my weekend mileage to 42km and total week to 60km.

At this moment, as i get out my running gear, i'm unsure how i'm actually going to run through 6km when i'm struggling to get up and down stairs (like seriously, using the rail to brace myself).

Mind over body.