Running in Hong Kong's bad air

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters Life!) - Flanked on one side by a construction project and a container terminal stretching for miles on the other, I soldiered on with thousands of runners in Hong Kong's Standard Chartered Marathon last Sunday.

Looking up, buildings about two km (1.25 miles) ahead were obscured behind a wall of early morning mist, or was it smog?

This was the fifth consecutive year that I have participated in this event, though this year I was only running the half, and bad air seems to be a fixture.

Last year, a runner collapsed and later died while trying to complete a race held on one of Hong Kong's most polluted days.

"The air feels thick, I'm finding it hard to breathe," one runner said about 4 km into last Sunday's run, when the pollution reading stood between medium and high.

The runners' booklet had an unusual entry this year, advising participants to stay alert for public announcements on the air pollution index. But it still failed to put people off.

A record 43,000 people registered, up from just over 1,000 in 1997. More than 6,200 required medical treatment and 35 had been taken to hospital by the end of Sunday. A 28-year-old man was still in critical condition on Wednesday.

The bulk of the 42-km course is an expressway along the Kwai Chung container terminal, meaning little spectator participation for much of the race.