Runner's High

Many athletes have quietly relied on cannabis for years, and as legalization spreads across the United States, pairing marijuana with exercise has become a popular idea. Still, many people picture cannabis users as sluggish, couch-bound snackers. Josiah Hesse, an investigative journalist, examines that gap in this book, which looks at both competitive athletes and recreational exercisers who use the drug. He also looks at the "runner's high," a feeling that aerobic exercise produces and that was long attributed to endorphins, and at what researchers have learned about it since.

Hesse draws on his own experience of the physical and mental changes cannabis can bring, and he follows the cannabis-using athletes he meets. Scientists now suggest that marijuana could help more Americans trade screens for sneakers. The book covers the economics of the $20 billion CBD market, the uneven enforcement of marijuana prohibition, and the mind-body connection behind the runner's high. It also includes instructions for making energy bars infused with cannabis.

Moving from the laboratory to the running trail, the basketball court, the playing field and the soccer pitch, the book is written for readers who want to understand how cannabis might change their approach to exercise, recovery and the plant itself.