Is working out high the next big thing in fitness?Most Americans imagine people who smoke weed watching bad movies and eating junk food...
The two cannabis entrepreneurs want to sell Americans on marijuana as part of a healthy lifestyle—and to create a signature brand in the process.
One of the first things you pick up at pot-related business events is that the preferred term is cannabis.
McAlpine is careful to say that cannabis affects people differently, and that working out a bit high won’t be for everyone. But he does want people to try it, and he encourages me to.
Jim McAlpine and Ricky Williams are not the only ones proselytizing the merits of marijuana for athletics.
In the National Football League, team physicians hand out so many painkillers that players have sued the league for fomenting addiction. That’s why retired athletes like Nate Jackson, appearing on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, have discussed how NFL players use cannabis as an alternative. “I weeded as needed,” ...a distinguished researcher who calls the plant “more effective” and “less addictive” than pain pills.
Dr. Iñigo San Millán, a sports physiologist who has worked with Tour de France cyclists...marijuana isn’t performance enhancing like doping—cannabis makes muscles and lungs, if anything, function worse. But, he adds, “in certain situations when reducing anxiety or pain is beneficial, marijuana may be helpful.”
...They tell me that cannabis helps them concentrate at work, feel energized in the gym, be less materialistic, and be a better spouse. It sounds too good to be true, especially without validation by objective outsiders.
I decide to go for a run again, slowly consuming the cannabis Shen recommended.
Once I leave my apartment, I take a hit from the vape pen...After two miles with no bad consequences, I pull out the vape pen and take another small hit.
The cannabis does not mask all pain. When I get a stitch in my side, I have to slow to a walk until it subsides. Nor does it focus me entirely on the present. My thoughts still wander as I run.
Instead, I just feel good—optimistic and energized.
When I reach my apartment, I check my time. During my previous best effort on a seven- to eight-mile run, I averaged an eight minute and 13 second mile time. On this run, I averaged seven minutes and 39 seconds.
One of my roommates asks how my run went. I respond without hesitation: “Best run of my life.”
The day after my cannabis-fueled run, I jog another eight miles, aided by hits from a vape pen... I cut another 17 seconds off my mile time, and whereas long runs once left me feeling dead-tired but satisfied, I still have the energy to conquer the world...
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