Running. Run, but far from the city
It is not uncommon to see people doing sports in the middle of urban chaos, but will practice running in the city be a good policy for health.
Running is trendy, many people now spend hours and hours of the week doing races to keep fit, breaking barriers in search of a new personal record. But like everything, there are limits for running. Going out for a run in the city is one of those restrictions, if you try to run in the chaos and traffic, you may be endangering your health – even more than if you were sitting at home, watching TV with a package of salted fries.
Still, let’s put this scenario into perspective: determined to do sports, we dress up and prepare the app that will measure how far we will go and we launch ourselves. We know we will run within the city, but we think it doesn’t matter.
That’s the reason why, to avoid disturbing other passers-by, you’ll run on the right side of the road. And these are the first mistakes: we must not run on the road because pedestrians are the most vulnerable elements when they are near traffic. Even worse, we must never walk or run with the flow of traffic on our back; if there’s an accident, we may not realize it and have fewer chances to escape from it. Therefore, if you have to walk or run on the traffic lane, the ideal is to do it on the left side facing the cars coming “our way”.
Still, it remains highly inadvisable run on the city streets. When practicing exercise, the alveoli are ready to absorb more oxygen than normal, so that blood can compensate for the lack of this vital gas in the cells. But in the city, the air is much heavier and loaded of impurities than anywhere else. So, whenever we make a stronger effort than normal in these environments we breathe giant amounts of pollution and, consequently, overload ourselves with toxic particles. Not to mention the sound pollution, it will make it harder for you to slip away from daily weariness and stress.
Ideally, you should, literally, run away from the polluted air to relax in a more peaceful and pure environment, rich in oxygen and with the quietness you need so that physical exercise turns reinvigorating.
