So let’s start with the fact that should be more famous than it is.
The runner’s high which is that thirty-minutes-in shift where the effort stops feeling like effort, your anxiety drops away, and things stop hurting is probably not merely endorphins. The evidence increasingly points to
, which is the compounds your body produces that act on the same receptors THC does.The main one is called anandamide, from ananda, the Sanskrit word for bliss. It was named that in 1992 by researchers who found it while investigating how cannabis works.
So the receptor system that gets so much attention in cannabis coverage isn’t a cannabis system at all. It’s yours. It’s named after the plant purely because that’s the direction science approached it from and now we found the lock by studying the key.
Which makes “should I run high?” a much more interesting question than it first appears.
How we know it’s not endorphins
The endorphin story has been the popular explanation since the seventies, and it has a problem. That’s because endorphins are large molecules that don’t cross the blood-brain barrier easily. Measuring them in blood doesn’t tell you much about what’s happening in the brain.
, running increased endocannabinoids and reduced both anxiety and pain sensitivity. When researchers blocked cannabinoid receptors, those effects disappeared. When they blocked opioid receptors instead, the effects largely persisted. , a double-blind, placebo-controlled study gave 63 participants either an opioid blocker or a placebo, then had them run for 45 minutes at moderate intensity or walk. The runners showed increased euphoria and decreased anxiety along with elevated anandamide and 2-AG. Interestingly enough, blocking the opioid system didn’t prevent it.A later meta-analysis found that acute exercise consistently raised endocannabinoid levels, most reliably anandamide, across running, swimming and weightlifting alike.
The dosage of your own supply
The research points at a fairly specific window, and we’ll take a deeper look at what that could potentially mean for you and your next run on the trail.
Intensity matters, and moderate wins. Too easy doesn’t trigger it. Too hard doesn’t either. The range associated with the largest endocannabinoid response is roughly 70–80% of age-adjusted maximum heart rate. That rate means the run is conversational-but-working, not a slow walk and not an all-out effort and it should be sustained for around 30 minutes or more.
If you’ve never felt a runner’s high, the most likely explanation is that you’ve been running too hard, too easy, or not long enough.
There’s two other elements to consider as well.
found the anandamide increase after an hour-long outdoor run was larger in women than men, which is the kind of sex difference that’s chronically understudied. And several studies suggest that may downregulate endocannabinoids over time, even though acute sessions still raise them. What that means for how veteran runners feel is genuinely unresolved.So what happens if you add THC?
Here’s where the piece has to be honest rather than fun. Sorry, but it’s not all bad news. But, there is something to be said if you’re angling for something performance-enchancing.
It doesn’t appear to make you faster. There’s no good evidence that cannabis improves endurance performance, and some evidence pointing the other way. In fact it can
, which means your body is working harder for the same output. Reaction time and coordination are not improved.It may make you enjoy it more. Research on people who exercise after using legal-market cannabis found greater enjoyment and a stronger reported runner’s-high experience, alongside higher perceived exertion. Which is a genuinely mixed result: the run felt better yet it also felt harder.
Look, there’s something to be said about an uptick in enjoyment. If the barrier between you and exercise is that you find it tedious, something that makes you want to go is worth taking seriously then adherence beats optimization for almost everyone who isn’t racing. So look at THC and running as a motivation tool and anyone selling it as a performance enhancer is just plain wrong.
The cardiovascular caveat is real. THC raises heart rate, and combining that with exertion is a legitimate consideration for anyone with a heart condition or risk factors.
Where CBD sits in this equation
Different question, mostly asked about recovery rather than performance.
doesn’t produce the cardiovascular effects does, and interest has focused on post-exercise inflammation and soreness. The research is genuinely early. Think small studies, mixed results, and a marketing apparatus running well ahead of the data. There’s a plausible mechanism and real anecdotal enthusiasm from athletes. There is not yet a body of evidence that would let anyone honestly tell you it works.Worth noting for anyone who competes with running is that cannabidiol was removed from the World Anti-Doping Agency’s prohibited list in 2018, but THC remains prohibited in competition. If you’re tested, this matters and the details are worth checking directly rather than taking a blog’s word for it.
What we’d actually tell a friend
If you want the high, chase the one you make yourself. After all, it’s free, the mechanism is better established, and the intensity window is a specific, actionable target most people have never been told.
If you use cannabis and want to run, the sequencing that makes sense to most people is after. Recovery, appetite, the wind-down — that’s where it’s least likely to interfere with anything and most likely to be pleasant.
And if using it beforehand is genuinely what gets you out the door, that’s a real benefit and you should know exactly what you’re trading: not speed, and not a lower sense of effort, but a better time.
This piece is informational and not medical advice. If you have a heart condition or cardiovascular risk factors, talk to a doctor before combining cannabis with exercise.