finding my endorphins

i can't say definitively that my swim this morning was due to reading a book or from having a break day yesterday, but can i just say i had the best swim this morning and i found my endorphins again!

let me start with the book. i just finished reading born to run by christopher mcdougall which is his quest to find out why his body was giving out on him when he ran. it took him to the tarahumara indians in mexico, ultrarunners (and by ultra, i mean running 100s of miles per session) and ultrarunners around the world. the thing that really stuck out to me was that the tarahumara enjoy running, they don't look like they're about to pass out on a hill or anything. in fact, their real name is raramuri (the running people or something to that extent). running started out as something to get out and clear my head but it slowly became a chore and the after run high, those wonderful chemically charged endorphins, went bye-bye. after finishing the book late last night i wanted to immediately go out and run, but i didn't think a run outside at 10 pm would be the safest or smartest thing to start out in my own quest for that running fun.

which brings me to this morning. i woke up excited to swim hoping that the ideas of running would translate into swimming (even though a lot of the theories in the book were about how humans were evolved to run) but i figured as long as i could get my head into it i would hopefully get the same results. and wha-la, i only stopped swimming because i had to take a shower to get to class, but i felt that endorphin high again and i was smiling in the shower and just thinking "i wish i had my sneakers so i could go out for a run now" so on my next run i'm going to go without my mp3 player and i'm going to try to be light on my feet and just enjoy the motions of getting from point a to who knows where

so, how do you feel when you run?