Is Running Good or Bad for our Heart?
I must say I’m not fond of running. Or, I should say I’m not fond of any activity that will trigger my sweat glands and enhance uncomfortable feeling of being exhausted, literally warm and sometimes stinky smell. However, I have a great stamina in all activities that require physical strength.
I remember when I was in my junior high school – during the Sports Fest, I will join all sorts of sports that my class compel a representative. I’m not saying they don’t have a choice but include me, but honestly – I’m good. I joined the 100-meter dash, discus throw, javelin throw, and all kinds of throw, high jump, or long jump. None of those I won, actually.
So I got tired – and I became the best admirer of indolence and laziness.
When I started to get conscious about my vitals and be able to achieve positive result (from 62 kgs to 50 kgs), I was advised to make a little effort to exercise or go to the gym or whatever that will burn my fats easily. Since I’m now in Singapore and jogging in the sidewalks is really convenient – I was encouraged. Okay, I admit, it is some sort of a fad here that every one is running either on sidewalks or the build-in track around HDBs. Not to mention, all my friends here are quite addicted in joining marathons, which are fairly often events that they look forward every month.
You bet, I joined the fad. It’s purely peer pressure! 
But, I haven’t tried the full marathon – like 42km or even half of that. Well, I have my reasons; first, the longer the dash, the costly I will pay. I don’t like that. I won’t let myself to get tired and weary and still pay. Second, I might not be able to finish that because I’m impatient that I already played all the tracks on my iPod and it is starting to repeat the playlist and I haven’t reached the finish line. And third, just recently, there were few incidents of those who died abruptly after doing the marathon.
Most recently, the New York Marathon has been held and there were some questions if this is good or bad to our health, or specifically to our heart. Apparently, it’s not advisable that we push too hard in marathon but that doesn’t mean we can’t run. Just like what it says in the video below, if you’re going to check the heart of a person after the marathon, without telling that you actually did a marathon run, the doctor might assume that the person is having a heart attack. God, that is serious.
Nevertheless, this doesn’t discourage me to continue on my weekend activity of going to the park across our house and run for an hour or two. But, this daunts me to join marathon. It’s relatively fun though. I joined the last Shape Run – Singapore’s first women-only running race that only had 5km and 10 km challenges to choose from. It’s exciting to be with the rest of 9,999 runners – which mostly comprised of avid runners and wannabes. But I think, doing that like twice or thrice a year is enough and I will not stress myself to queue to register in all sorts of Marathon Events like Standard Chartered or Adidas Sundown. Or maybe I will register because my friend already included my name – again, another peer pressure.
So, is running good or bad for our heart? We know our body. We know when to go on or to stop from running. Just like what Oprah Winfrey quoted,
“Running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it.”
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