Running and Air Pollution

Ein interessanter Artikel, den ich meinem Kollegen Martin aus Shenyang verdanke: Es geht um Laufen in Städten mit hoher Luftverschmutzung. Trotz der in der Imagebroschüre von Hefei erwähnten 300 Tage mit guter Luftqualität sieht die Realität natürlich auch hier anders aus. (Übrigens diese Imagebroschüre ist echt der Hammer, als Hefeianer erkennt man darin seine eigene Stadt nicht wieder. Völlig schmerzfrei wird dort Hefei allen ernstes als "grüne" Stadt, mit Kultur and Flair dargestellt. "Window-Dressing" ist etwas worin die Chinesen echte Meister sind. Aber schau besser nicht dahinter...) Da ich also auch in einer Stadt mit hoher Luftverschutzung regelmäßig laufe (so etwa 30-40 km pro Woche) war dieser Artikel recht interessant für mich und es ist wirklich immer wieder die Frage die man sich selbst stellt - tut man seinem Körper da überhaupt noch was gutes? Aber als wirklicher Läufer hat man ohnehin keine andere Wahl, ... also jetzt zum Artikel. (das Bild daneben ist natürlich nicht von Hefei sondern vom letztjährigen Swiss-Alpine in der Schweiz wo es derartige Probleme nicht gibt - die liegen dort eher in der Topographie :-)

FITNESS
When exercise runs up against pollution

There was something in the air at the recent Hong Kong Marathon, and it wasn't the sweet smell of success.

With air pollution at high levels, 40,000 runners participated in the Feb. 12 event, most of them in the 10K (6.2 mile) race. But 9,116 ran the half-marathon (13.1 miles), and another 3,184 went the full 26.2-mile marathon distance on a day when the air pollution index reportedly reached 149 on a scale of zero to 500 - a level at which local authorities usually issue health warnings for those with heart or respiratory illnesses.

What happened was what many would consider inevitable in those conditions: A 53-year-old runner, reportedly an asthmatic, collapsed during the race and later died. Another 19 participants in the race were also reported to have collapsed, including one 33-year-old man who was hospitalized in critical condition.

Responding to post-race criticisms that the race should not have been held on such a smoggy day, officials said that at the start of the race (8:15 a.m.) the pollution readings were at 100, a level considered high but not severe enough to affect healthy individuals. The index is calculated by measuring concentrations of five pollutants - including ozone, carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide - in the air at a given time.

Smog or high ozone or pollution levels are not an issue for the Long Island Marathon - held the first Sunday in May. "We've never had a problem with air quality," says Dr. Edward Fryman, medical director for the event since the early 1980s. As for outdoor exercise in general, Fryman says, "I don't think that air quality should be a concern for Long Islanders. I find if I run and pass a truck and suck in fumes, I'm not happy about that. But it's not an excuse not to run."

Besides, he notes, there are alternatives here to running alongside Jericho or Hempstead turnpikes at rush hour. "There are really nice bike paths and greenbelt trails all over Long Island. Those are wonderful places to run or walk in, and the air quality is great. The only thing you have to be concerned about there is ticks."

Cancelation idea a surprise

No one disagrees that Hong Kong is a polluted city, with most of it coming from the growing number of factories in the neighboring Pearl River Delta of southern China. "The air pollution here is bad and has been getting progressively worse in the last 10 years," says Gillian Castka, a British expatriate and elite runner. The smoggy conditions haven't kept her from running, however: "I've been averaging about 40 to 50 miles per week for the past 15 years, and I just get on with it," she said in an e-mail.

Still, the deaths and injuries attributed to poor air quality - and the suggestion of canceling a race for that reason - caught many Western marathon officials by surprise.

"I've heard of postponements and cancellations due to weather ... lightning ... or other acts of God, but not this," said Jack Fleming, spokesman for the Boston Athletic Association, organizers of the Boston Marathon. That race, which will be held for the 110th time April 17, is the world's oldest marathon.

When it was first run there were concerns participants might die in Boston, but the more likely culprits would have been the cigarettes smoked by many runners of that era, the strychnine-laced drinks some took as performance aids, or the trolleys that crossed the marathon route at several points. Unless you counted the clouds of dust kicked up by runners on the dirt roads, air pollution in the 1890s was not an issue.

Should it be now?

Despite what happened in Hong Kong, experts doubt there is a link between deaths and injuries in the marathon and air quality. "I think it had nothing to do with the smog," says Dr. Robert Sallis, a physician in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., who is also vice president of the American College of Sports Medicine. "It's funny how critics jump right on that, however."

Asthma study of athletes

Sallis has published a number of studies about the effects of air quality on runners and other athletes. One, published in May 2005 in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, analyzed rates of asthma and allergy attacks among college athletes who grew up in nonsmoggy areas but attended schools and competed in smoggy areas.

Among the 464 athletes (all competing in outdoor sports) followed in the study, Sallis and his colleagues found that "very few" developed asthma during their four years of sports competition in areas with high levels of pollution. Based on this data, he concluded, "pollution levels may not be as strong a trigger for asthma and allergy as has traditionally been thought."

Sallis is quick to point out that he does not consider pollution acceptable; he just doesn't want to see it used as an excuse not to run, walk or engage in healthy outdoor exercise.

"I think the benefits of exercise and running so outweigh the small potential risks of air pollution," he says. "I would worry that even talking about this would discourage some overweight guy with diabetes to get up and do something that would bring far more benefits."

In other words, remaining sedentary in a polluted area is more dangerous to your health than running in it.