SAVING YOU A PAIR OF SNEAKERS –

June 20, 2024 – When Kellen Matthews heard a doctor at his addiction rehab program say that running can give you a high similar to that of drugs, it grabbed his attention. He had been using opioids for more than a decade, starting when he was just 13. Matthews started with prescription drugs such as Percocet, but by the time he was out of high school, he was using fentanyl and heroin. Matthews went to rehab several times before, but this time had to be different. He’d been so beaten down by the hold opioids had on him that he concluded the only options left were to finally break his addiction or take his own life.

The morning after he heard the doctor explain a runner’s high, Matthews sought it out for himself, even though he was in no condition to do so.

“I was smoking at the time, [my] diet was awful, [I was] in no shape at all to start running,” he said.

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