Where do you exercise?

: in Blogs

When I lived in Cape Town, I met a lot of runners, cyclists, triathletes and gym-goers. It is in fact a particularly fit and healthy city when I compare with other places that I've lived in the UK and the States. There are plenty of exceptions to that rule, though, and Cape Town has it's fair share of stress junkies who work hard and play hard, expecting their bodies to cope with the strain. The number of over-worked, over-trained cyclists that I've seen since I’ve been in South Africa .......

So we need to work and we also need to train if we're going to do well in the Argus, 94.7, Epic, Oceans or whatever your bag is - that's a given. However, there is one simple adjustment that many of you can make:

Exercise in Nature

There is so much of it around Cape Town - I used to walk or run daily with my dog on the slopes of Table Mountain, or else I was in Tokai on my MTB. Nature gives you something much more than just a training response from the effort that you put in. It gives you a whole heap of mental energy and a sense of calmness that Virgin Active can never compete with.

So, get off your spinning bike or off the boring straight road that you train along and go somewhere that you really enjoy - chances are that you will be less likely to overtrain, especially if you take a moment to inhale the view. If you're reading this from the depths of a city, there are still pockets of beauty - I can remember lunchtime runs in Hyde Park in London and the commute home over the Waterloo Bridge, with a view of the Tate Modern on one side and Millennium Wheel on the other. If you’re in Johannesburg, the Sprait is a haven for walking/running/biking, as are the adjoining Delta and Emmerentia parks.