Chasing the runner’s high: the elusive buzz scientists are still figuring out

‘One thing that seems to be clear is that the intensity of exercise matters for triggering the runner’s high.’ Photograph: Westend61 GmbH/Alamy

I’m a reluctant runner. Two or three times a week, I stagger around the streets and pathways of my neighbourhood, motivated only by the company of my running buddy and by the anticipation of the food I will enjoy when I get home.

The idea of a runner’s high hovers tantalisingly on the horizon, like a neurochemical mirage. Maybe once on a longer run I felt it, like my feet had grown wings and for the first time in my running life I actually wanted to keep going.