To the Secretary of Education: Here’s why running needs to be included in the curriculum

By Patton Chiu

Running is one of the most popular sports which suits everyone of all ages. Every year, Hong Kong hosts the Standard Chartered Hong Kong Marathon, with over tens of thousands of Hongkongers and racers around the world dying to participate. As of now, during the Covid 19 pandemic, more people have taken up running to maintain better health. If running is such a prominent sport, why is running not included in the school physical education(“PE”) curriculum? 

School life is full of stress and anxiety at every level. As a year 11 student, I can tell you that being a student is not an easy job and can often be very dull and stressful. From assignments to exams, to services and tuition classes, I barely have enough time to relax and get appropriate hours of sleep. What if I tell you running can solve the problem.

Running can help reduce stress in students. According to the University of Harvard, when you run, your body releases endorphins, your brain’s “feel good” neurotransmitters and reduces cortisol, the body’s primary stress hormone. So, as you run, your brain is releasing these natural painkillers which reduces stress and negative feelings, thus making running one of the best activities to help students clear their heads and refreshen after a busy day of school.

Hendrik Chan, a year 11 student as well as a regular runner from Renaissance College Hong Kong believes that running has a positive impact on stress relief.

“During stressful and hard times, running along the promenade has always been my go-to activity to relax as well as reflect upon myself.” Chan said.

Besides reducing stress in students, running is one of the best types of exercises to lose weight.

A study conducted by the Hong Kong Pediatric Foundation in 2020 revealed that 24% of male primary students were detected to be obese and overweight, whereas 15% for female primary students. This makes it crucial for schools to have programs for weight loss. 

You’re probably wondering, why choose running? Running burns more calories than most other types of aerobic exercises as it requires more muscles to perform. This makes running the best exercise to help students lose weight and stay healthy.

Furthermore, running helps students develop a variety of essential skills including perseverance and  confidence. 

From my personal experience, in the past, I always tried making running a habit as I know running is good for my health. But every time after running for just 10 minutes, I would get very tired, and on some occasions I got stomach cramps due to improper breathing. I always used my stomach cramps as an excuse to get myself out of running, but from the bottom of my heart, I knew that the real reason was that I was tired. Since I knew what I was doing was wrong, I decided to set myself a goal to complete a 4 kilometer run without stopping. During the run, as always, my legs felt tired and I got a stomach cramp, but I didn’t stop. I kept on running and persevering no matter how painful it was and guess what, in the end my cramp disappeared and I managed to finish the run without stopping. That's when I learned that if I keep persevering and don’t give up, I will eventually succeed. After this experience, my running capability kept improving which increased my confidence and helped me build up the perseverance to keep running and aiming for longer distances. 

Even RCHK secondary PE teacher and professional runner Joel Langley considers that running has many benefits and should be included into the curriculum. “I think that running is a foundation skill, not just long-distance running necessarily, but just the biomechanics of running efficiently over short distances and long distances, where the benefits for cardiovascular health are long-proven and well studied. Having a good base to be able to run is not just a good physical skill, but also a good lifestyle skill to have in our lives.” Langley said. 

I know some haters out there are probably saying, “Running is harmful to your knees”, and I totally agree with you all, that is if you run with poor form. In fact, most knee injuries such as osteoarthritis are caused by overworking your legs, which only happens if you repeatedly run long distances regularly without proper rest.

If you haters are also going to argue that the student’s knees “might be put under a lot of pressure” due to the many PE lessons during the week, have a think, do you know of any schools in Hong Kong that have PE lessons every day? I'm pretty sure not! According to the Curriculum Development Council of Hong Kong, primary and secondary schools should only allocate 80-90 minutes of PE lesson time per week. So, don’t go saying that students will get osteoarthritis just by running 80 minutes every week!

I am still wondering, why is a sport that has so many benefits not included into the PE curriculum? To the Secretary of Education, if you treasure the health and wellbeing of the future generation, I strongly suggest you include running into the school PE curriculum before it’s too late. At the end of the day, running has many benefits so I highly recommend everyone and not just students to make it a habit to run on a regular basis.