Before taking up jogging as a new year’s resolution you should know this — jogging can become an addictive behavior. This may explain why we see joggers pounding the pavement at all hours of the day and night and in all sorts of weather, even extreme conditions that keep postal service employees from their appointed rounds. Addicted runners undoubtedly need our help, but are afraid to ask. According to a University of Wisconsin study, which was published in the journal Behavioral Neuroscience, "run-loving mice showed much higher levels of activity in brain regions that also light up when mice addicted to cocaine or nicotine don’t get their daily fix." The white mice in the program were selectively bred to love running, and we can only suppose their tiny sweatbands and color-coordinated jogging outfits set them apart from the drug-addicted mice, a surly and less desirable group. Although many of us can readily identify with a "chocolate buzz" or a "shopper’s high," it’s difficult for many of us to imagine a "runner’s high." If anything, we’re suspicious of joggers who apparently can live without sleeping late or automatically jumping into a car whenever they leave the house. It’s easy to distrust runners. If joggers tell us that it feels good to have their lungs bursting through their rib cages, to have their hearts beating at four times their normal rates and to have their legs feel like knotted ropes at the end of a run, they would probably lie about other things too. Pain and fun were never intended to be synonymous. Joggers’ apparent failure to pay attention to their physical pains may be the reason why more people are collapsing in perfect health than ever before. It’s not that I’m unfamiliar with running. With a stopwatch in one hand and as many chocolate chip cookies as I could hold in the other, I once ran three-fourths of a mile and back in 1974. It turned out to be the longest morning of my life. The run immediately followed a determined walk, another first in my life, over the same section of gravel road. The walk was relatively unremarkable and lasted 30 minutes. Inspired by this physical accomplishment, I decided to run the same distance. After all, running looked easy when other people did it. Unfortunately, there were witnesses even though the isolated rural road rarely had traffic on most days. It seemed as though every time I sat down on the edge of the road to catch my breath and boost my stamina with a cookie, a vehicle would stop and someone would yell, "Do you need a ride?" They all asked — the neighbors, the UPS guy and the fuel delivery truck driver. "I’m fine," would be my gasped response. "I’m just running. Trying to get — some exercise." In addition to having shortness of breath, it was difficult to answer their questions with a mouthful of cookies. The running portion of my new exercise regimen that morning lasted one hour, twice as long as it took to walk. Running hardly seemed worthwhile. According to the stopwatch, it definitely didn’t save time. Ever since that exhausting day in 1974, I have wisely followed the advice of Robert Maynard Hutchins — "Whenever I feel like exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes. " Just say, "No!"
