Are you bored of running on the treadmill inside the fitness room? Bored of exercising inside the aircon room after spending 8-9 hours in the aircon office? Long for fresh air and prefer to hear bird chirping rather than musics from your iPod?
One way to enjoy exercising for me is to go jogging outside. I like the feeling of breathing fresh air, seeing green grass field, and smelling the soil. However, given the fact that I live in the city, jogging outside is not highly recommended due to several factors I do take into account before I jog.
- Concern about the toxic vehicle emissions
- Where is a good place to jog? and when?
Living in a big city, I cannot avoid cars that come with toxic emissions. Especially, when we do any exercise, we are likely to inhale more air per minute compared to normal activity, and we inhale deeper into our lungs.
Dr Chew Huck Chin, Associate Consultant at the Department of Respiratory & Critical Caer Medicine from Singapore General Hospital confirmed this theory that we inhale more pollutants when exercising. A sedentary person inhales about 6-10 litres of air per minute. When doing heavy aerobic exercise, we can draw in at least 10 times that amount, and the air goes deeper into the lungs. We also tend to breathe in through the mouth, which bypasses the little brush-like filters present in our nose.
But, he said: “As a whole, the benefits of exercising far outweigh the risks of inhaling pollutants.”
Also, he said the use of modern catalytic converters has largely reduced the carbon monoxide emissions from vehicles. In an open space, such as a bus stop, this exposure is generally not an issue as the harmful gases will not build up to a sufficiently high level to cause problems.
A suitable place to jog? Safety issue?
Well, parks are better than roads, and off-peak hours are better than typical peak hours where there are more vehicles on the roads. For road safety, many people suggest joggers to be better off exercising in designated parks and recreational areas.
However, living in the city left us with little choices.
I try to adapt jogging into my daily routine in a way that I can enjoy it with my living condition given. After long working hours, I don’t want to travel long way to the park, so I chose to jog near my area, and jog along pedestrian route on the inner roads for my safety and avoiding toxic emission from vehicles on the main roads.
After work, I want to rest a bit and chill out before doing any other activities. So, I go jogging around 10pm to midnight because of tranquil atmosphere, less cars or zero car on the streets, and no exposure to sunlight that would damage my skin.
All these allow and encourage me to jog longer, and more enjoyable. But for women, we have some concerns to bare in mind when running in the dark.
Jogging during odd hours for women, the most important thing after all is the safety of our neighbourhood. Check out your surrounding before choosing the right route and time to jog. Also, running in the dark is better with buddy and your cell phone, and don’t forget to wear a bright top to ensure you are visible to others.
However, If there is no safe route and trusted neighbourhood, ‘DON’T JOG’ at night.
