It is the perennial complaint of itinerant businesspeople. They travel the world, in style, and yet they see little of their destinations apart from the inside of hotels, taxis and meeting rooms. ‘Oh yes, I’ve been there’, they’ll say, ‘but I can’t tell you what it’s actually like’.
And yet, if you interrogate them more closely, you will find that at some stage in their busy day they will find time to head to the hotel gym for an hour or so. Driven men and women make fitness a priority, and quite rightly so. In fact I know of a high-flying lawyer who depends on his daily fix in trainers so much so that he interrupts his work trips to Australia with a stopover at Singapore’s Changi airport, to run around the perimeter fence. Presumably he manages to find a shower before resuming his seat in business class, and I pity the customs officer who asks to search his hand luggage, only to plunge his hands into a pile of damp, sweaty kit.
The absurdity of working out in far-away gyms was driven home to me last year in particular while I was in India, on a luxury train from Mumbai to Goa. The Deccan Odyssey had an onboard gym, the first I have ever encountered on a train. So I found myself pounding away on the running machine, at a steady 12.5kmh, while the train progressed through the Southern Ghats, at five times my speed. That is definitely the fastest I have ever run, but it was also a ludicrous situation, with me exercising away in an air-conditioned tube, rushing through a wonderful landscape that combined rice fields and mountains.
Fortunately, several organisations have woken up to the opportunity and have come up with a concept that appeals to hard-pressed, exercise-hungry, destination-curious execs.
It is called ‘sightjogging’, and it bundles sightseeing and exercise into one. In essence it is a group jog, usually in the morning or evening before or after work, which is led by a fitness guru/guide who then supplies the ‘running’ commentary.
The first cities to launch the activity were New York and Rome, a couple of years back, followed by several more US destinations, and Berlin, Frankfurt, Barcelona and Zurich. And now you can even do it in Jerusalem.
You do not have to be super fit to participate, but you do need to keep running for 60 to 90 minutes, time that passes quickly when you are seeing new places. Guides generally try to keep the pace slow – after all, they need to have enough breath to talk – so there is no question of it developing into a race. And it is surprising how much ground you can cover (see box), taking in major sites in a fraction of the time it would take someone to cover the same ground at walking pace.
As for your co-runners, they will generally be an interesting and inquisitive bunch. Running guides who have also done time on tour buses report that sightjoggers ask a lot more questions, despite a marked shortage of breath!
Running tours
In Rome, a typical hour-long run might start with the Spanish Steps, zoom past the Trevi Fountain, head up Capitoline Hill and back down the other side around the Forum and the Colosseum, loop the Circus Maximus, and end, Roman Holiday-style, at the Bocca della Verità.
Tel: (+39) 3473 353 185
www.sightjogging.it
In Berlin, tours generally start at the Brandenburg Gate, take in the Holocaust Memorial, Potsdamer Platz,the embassy district, the Victory Column, the Bellevue Palace, the new Berlin Hauptbahnhof and all the new government buildings in the vicinity of the Reichstag.
Tel: (+49) 3079 789 854
www.sightjogging-berlin.de
In the US, sightjogging is most developed with City Running Tours, which operates in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Washington DC and Charleston. An eight-mile New York run could start in Brooklyn, cross theBrooklyn Bridge and continue through the Financial District, Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho, the Village, Gramercy, Times Square, and Central Park.
Tel: (+1) 2122 093 370
www.cityrunningtours.com
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