I have an odd request,” I said. “I’m hoping to write a magazine article—” The saleswoman behind the counter cut me off. “Say no more. I know exactly what you need. Sativa. Helps you get into deep focus, really get in touch with your innermost thoughts.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “But that’s not why I want to buy pot.” I had found out about runners using marijuana as a performance-enhancing drug through that underground hot-sheet of the counterculture, The Wall Street Journal. All the runners quoted, by name and anonymously, were ultrarunners and talked about the particular value of pot to someone who routinely runs 150 miles a week. In the story, ultramarathoner Jenn Shelton said marijuana helps runners “manage…pain, not puke, and stay calm.”

I’m no ultrarunner, but I was still surprised: I can’t run at all with even a little alcohol in my system, as the dizziness and nausea overwhelm me. Hell, I’ve had to cancel runs because I took too much Benadryl the night before. As for pot, like most people of my generation, I’ve tried it, and even enjoyed it. But I’ve never tried to do anything while under its influence more complicated than making microwave popcorn (which under those circumstances is delicious). But put aside the question of whether pot helps a runner— I couldn’t imagine successfully putting one foot in front of another while under the influence. How in the world could it work? A trip to Washington State, where recreational marijuana sales and use are now legal, gave me the opportunity to find out (learn more about the Benefits and Risks of Marijuana for Runners).

I had once visited a medical marijuana clinic in California for a documentary, and that was all blond wood and soft lighting, with clerks trained to talk and act like pharmacists. Uncle Ike’s Pot Shop in Seattle, though, is a place out of Tommy Chong’s wildest daydreams. It’s decorated like your stoner brother’s basement bedroom, with psychedelia and posters for pot-scare movies like Reefer Madness, and has a cheerful, happy staff that really knows their product. Imagine a liquor store staffed by a bunch of really enthusiastic alcoholics—“Ah, looking to get drunk while staring at photos of your ex? I’d recommend vodka!”

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Once I had sorted out with the staff what I was there for and what I could do (quote people by name) and not do (ask about the medical effects of pot, as it was not a dispensary), I got passed to salesman Jason Snell, who in his Seattle Seahawks regalia looked even younger than his 22 years, like a high school kid dressed up for his first NFL game. Snell—who was urged to get into the pro pot trade by his grandmother, who knew it to be a passion of his—listened patiently as I explained that I desired a “good kind” of pot to run on (with?). He then launched into a disquisition on “cannabinoids” and “terpene” and “CBD” and, when all was said (by Jason) and done (by me), had me walking out with a pipe and a vial of a “super uplifting” strain called, charmingly, “Green Crack.”

It was indeed a sativa strain, as the first saleswoman had predicted. Jason told me that it was better for mental focus and physical activity than indica strains, which create more of a “body high.” I assume he meant that with indica, I’d end up sitting by the side of the road, asking myself if I’d ever looked…I mean really looked…at my own feet. Oh, and before I left, I posed for a photo with Snell. Turns out, his grandmother is a big fan of mine.

The grand experiment took place two days later. According to the Journal, marijuana is used primarily by long-distance trail runners, but the last thing I wanted to do was to toke up and head off into strange woods. Instead, I wanted a short, closed loop so I couldn’t get lost and could easily walk back to my starting place if the run went as badly as I feared. The obvious choice was the path at Capitol Lake Park in Olympia, a 1.5-mile loop at the base of the state capitol—seeing as it was the vision of the legislature that had made the experiment possible, it seemed an appropriate spot.

RELATED: How to Achieve a Runner’s High

My designated driver was my friend Bob Haft, a professor at nearby Evergreen State College. Sitting on the porch at his house, I lit up my new pipe and took a few deep drags of Green Crack. (Runners who aren’t into smoking reportedly prefer edibles such as pot-infused brownies, but I was warned that their effects were harder to predict.) Within minutes, certain parts of my brain lit up; other parts shut down. A short but interesting car ride later, we were at the park.

Almost the instant I started off on the path around the lake, I was approached by a man coming the other way with no shirt and flaming red hair and a beard screaming and shouting, “I AM SATAN! I AM SATAN!” We passed each other without additional comment, though I did give him a polite nod, thinking, Man, I hope other people can see that guy…

I didn’t feel dulled or fuzzy-headed; I felt, as promised, as if my focus had deepened. I was thinking really, really vividly. The problem was my vivid thoughts were hard to hold onto for more than a second. I felt like my brain was a gerbil on a treadmill that wouldn’t stand still.

The main surprise of the run was that it happened at all. Despite my altered state, I was perfectly capable of running at a relaxed pace, around 8:30 per mile. This was amazing to me, or would have been if I could have focused on the fact for longer than a few seconds. In any event, I kept moving forward…well, except for the times I lost concentration and walked, but if you want to know the truth, I do that when I’m perfectly sober, too.

The main disappointment was that although I was still running, the running was still taking an effort. The hope that I would suddenly feel weightless, or fall into an effortless state of nirvana-like ease, ended quickly. After a single 1.5-mile lap, I felt as if I had run 1.5 miles and was not particularly looking forward to the second lap—same as always. I passed Bob, who assured me he had seen Satan as well, and started off on lap 2.

And so it went. Even though I was perfectly aware of where I was, what I was doing, and how far I had to go, I was at the same time distant from it. I couldn’t focus for more than a few seconds on the effort of my run. We’ve all experienced that terrible tunnel vision during a hard run, where we say to ourselves, Just to that tree…, and then after the tree, Just to that street light…, to get ourselves step by step out of the valley of despair. Not being able to focus on anything for more than a second was a drag—but not being able to focus on how far I had gone, and how far I had to go, was just as much a blessing.

For example, as I finished my second lap, I decided to tack on a little distance, the steep hill up from the lake to the steps of the capitol. It’s a series of 15 switchbacks, each at a decent grade, and had I been sober I would have been counting each back and forth across the hill, with one mental column for switchbacks done and another for switchbacks left to go. But on this day I wasn’t capable of providing that much context. I was running up a hill. I wasn’t certain exactly how long I’d been doing it, and I couldn’t tell you how much longer I had to go, but I knew at that moment my job was to run up a hill, and that was a fine thing to do. Then I got to the top and said “Oh” and decided it’d be really fine to run down and back to Bob. All through the run my pace was a good deal slower than it usually is, so I can’t recommend using pot to win a race. (It might make losing more pleasant, though.) But at the same time, much as pot can make microwave popcorn a feast for the senses, it turned a pretty dull run around an urban pond into something of an adventure. If I were facing a very long run on my own, alone with my thoughts, it might be a fine way to make those thoughts more interesting to be with.

Funny thing—as I finished the final lap, I kept looking for Bob, and started to anxiously wonder if something had happened to him, or if he had left without me, or maybe he was following me, or maybe I was following him, and if two people are running the same circle at the same time, who’s following who anyway, and if he were running 10 feet ahead of me, couldn’t you say he was actually following me, but like a mile and half behind, and…

Turns out he was right where I had left him, but I had lost track of where that was. Who said you can’t get lost on a closed loop?

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