Lucky Birds

During my run yesterday, I finally returned to that blissful space often referred to as runners high. I began to think about the physiological events that were happening. I thought about my quickened heart rate and how it accompanies the endorphins. Shortly thereafter, I thought about the canary, whose resting HR sits somewhere around 1000 bpm. Whoa!! And, birds get so much exercise flapping those wings so many times each day, except for the ostrich. Well, the ostrich is so big that its resting heart rate is much slower than 1000 bpm. But, that is another story. This story is about canaries.

With all of that exercise and a ticker that's moving at breakneck speeds, I bet they live their lives in a constant state of runners high, or shall we call it birds high. Not only do they get to fly around and sing all day, but the endorphins have to be quite active under those feathers. The endorphin generated euphoria would be a logical explanation for all of the singing, I suppose. Are there any zoologists out there who can confirm that birds really are living this blissful existence? I guess if you come into this life as a canary you have a HUGE chance you will spend your entire life in jail (a.k.a. be a pet and live in a cage), which is not so desirable.

Or, you could be one of those lucky wild canaries. The one with the racing heart that gets a huge amount of exercise and sings all day. That life just might be something like the meditative space that I hope to find somewhere between mile 3 and mile 15 of a run.....