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It has happened to Amby Burfoot just twice over a long running career that includes winning the Boston Marathon in 1968. Like many runners, he recalls it as if it were a near-religious experience.

"My mind started freewheeling and I lost sense of time," says Mr. Burfoot, an editor-at-large at Runner's World magazine. "It was just this wonderful, warm, effortless being in the present without any sense of what was behind or what's ahead, just sort of flowing."

This feeling of effortlessness and euphoria is what's been dubbed the runner's high. While runners have experienced it probably for as long as people have been pounding pavement, there is no scientific consensus of what causes the phenomenon.

Some studies suggest it is the result of endorphins, the body's naturally occurring painkillers, while others claim it is due to anandamide, a natural chemical that acts on the brain much the same way as THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Whatever the explanation, those who have experienced runner's high say there is nothing like it.

"It's as if the sun is shining down just for you. You feel like Superman," says Tricia Minnick, a 27-year-old who lives in Florida.

"It usually comes when I'm struggling with my run. I'm having a hard time, I'm plodding through, I'm hating it, and then I just realize I'm smiling and I'm not feeling any pain and I'm not feeling my feet hit the ground."

Ms. Minnick, who took up running just over a year ago, first experienced the runner's high while five miles into a gruelling run in early January.

"I was hating it," she says. But all of a sudden, she says, "I had a huge smile on my face and I was like, this is amazing. I can just go forever. I felt like I was flying."

This feeling may be the result of endorphins.

"Anyone who exercises might report about a sense of euphoria, feeling happy and pleasant after the exercise, even though the exercise itself might have been quite intense and painful," says Graydon Raymer, an exercise physiologist at Nipissing University, in North Bay, Ontario. "This sort of sense of invincibility, that's an endorphin release."

In 2008, researchers at the University of Bonn, in Germany, performed PET scans on 10 distance runners before and after a two-hour run. The scans revealed that endorphins were produced during the run in the area of the brain associated with emotions, which may explain why runners sometimes feel elated.

But a study conducted in 2004 by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of California, Irvine, suggests the runner's high could be due to a naturally occurring chemical called anandamide.

The chemical, which acts upon the brain's cannabinoid receptors much the same way smoking pot does, not only produces feelings of painlessness and relaxation, it also dilates the bronchial tubes and blood vessels, meaning it should help people run longer.

The runner's high, however, is still something of a mystery, especially considering many people who have gone for hundreds of runs may have only experienced it a handful of times.

Norma Bastidas, an ultra-marathoner who lives in Calgary, says she has experienced runner's high only three or four times.

"It's not something that's common," she says. "I call it the Forrest Gump moment when the bullies are chasing him and his braces come off and he runs amazing," she says.

Most runners say the feeling only lasts 10 to 15 minutes. And while there is no guarantee of enjoying the high every time a runner laces up, it is a feeling worth chasing, Ms. Minnick says.

"Being able to experience it is almost enough to keep running, thinking you could get that way again," she says.

Indeed, the runner's high can turn in to a real addiction, as it affects the brain's pleasure receptors, says Robin Kanarek, a psychologist at Tufts University in Massachusetts.

"We have studies both looking at the endorphin system and we also have some studies looking at the dopamine system which is also involved in drugs of abuse. And both of those are elevated in animals that are running," she says.

In a 2008 study, Prof. Kanarek looked at two groups of rats, one that received exercise and one that did not, and then administered a drug to the rats used to put heroin addicts through withdrawal.

"When we gave it to the running rats, they went through what looked like opiate withdrawal," Prof. Kanarek says. Running, she says, "acts quite literally like a drug."

But there is no way to ensure it is a drug runners can enjoy every time they hit the pavement. Perhaps that is a good thing, Mr. Burfoot says.

"If there were, then everyone would be a runner," he says.

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