I’m a nasty runner. OK, perhaps not “unhealthy”. I get on the market, I do it. However I’m gradual and plodding. I’ll cut price with myself to only run a brief 3km. The farthest I’ve ever run is 6km – and it occurred as a result of I used to be heading to a pub on the different finish.

One of many issues they attempt to promote you on while you begin working is “runner’s excessive”: that magical sense of euphoria you get from actually pushing your physique. It’s dangled as a carrot in entrance of the entire horrible runs you’ll have to do to get any good at working. Hold doing this, they are saying, and also you’ll expertise that extraordinary phenomenon.

I’ve by no means run quick sufficient, or far sufficient, to get even near experiencing runner’s excessive. However I’ve skilled one thing which, whereas maybe much less sensational, is nonetheless its personal buzz – runner’s smugness.

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I’ve been working now for 4 years. I had tried to change into a runner earlier than, downloading the Sofa to 5K app after studying Bella Mackie’s guide Jog On, about how working helped her anxiousness. I believed perhaps this was one thing that would assist my anxiousness, too. But it surely didn’t stick. It felt not possible to jog for an entire minute. So as to add to that there have been simply too many different, much less horrible-feeling, issues I might be doing.

That modified with Covid lockdowns. All of the sudden I had an excessive amount of time – and growing anxiousness that I wanted to get on prime of. So I reopened the app and began working once more. I’m not even sure why I owned trainers (low-cost as they clearly have been, with no actual assist or construction), however I did, and I might put them on for these impossible-seeming one-minute intervals.

Over time I acquired higher. I may run for a minute, no issues. Then three, then 5, then eight. Lastly, I did it: I reached the 5km mark. It was gradual. I virtually actually stopped a number of instances. I acquired house and collapsed straight into an armchair. However I’d finished it. Smug.

The science is barely fuzzy on what causes runner’s excessive. For a very long time it was believed to be attributable to a launch of endorphins – hormones that enhance our sense of wellbeing. However analysis in 2021 pointed the finger in one other route, in direction of the discharge of endocannabinoids, our physique’s personal variations of THC and CBD, which act on the identical receptors as these medicine.

However what truly does trigger runner’s excessive is, for me, moot. I don’t run quick sufficient, or far sufficient, for that magical drop of hormones or cannabinoids, for that sense of euphoria. My quick, gradual runs are pure labour, extra about getting one foot in entrance of the opposite than any actual athletic prowess. I cease and stroll continuously. It’s in regards to the vacation spot, not the journey.

I used to be as soon as chasing this excessive. However now I’m extra content material with the truth that, regardless of not considering I’ll ever obtain it, I hold getting on the market and working anyway.

Through the years I’ve been working I’ve seen a distinction in myself: when I’m exercising persistently, my anxiousness is decrease total. The achievement isn’t in that one explicit run. The achievement is in all of the little methods these runs will add up over time to make me really feel genuinely extra comfy in my physique. And after I’m coping with a very anxious day, working will help me get out of my head – or, on the very least, give me one thing else to do for half an hour.

And so there lies the smugness: I did one thing. I managed to placed on my sneakers and my working outfit, and I left the home for half-hour – and I ran. What number of different individuals ran immediately? OK, in all probability rather a lot, and possibly rather a lot higher than me. However how many individuals didn’t run immediately? Most individuals. However I did. Smug.

Once I journey for work and my colleagues catch me on an early morning run? Smug. When somebody calls me and I’ve to apologise for being out of breath as a result of I’m on a run? Smug. I’ve elevated my pace from ridiculously gradual to only extremely gradual? Smug.

For me, working isn’t in regards to the euphoria. It’s in regards to the small, on a regular basis achievement of doing one thing I do know will make me really feel higher in the long term. It will get me out of my home and out of my head, and feeling smug about these little feats is sufficient.

• Jane Howard is a Walkley-award profitable arts journalist and the humanities and tradition editor on the Dialog