My Favorite Jogging Route in Nanzih
My dad is a police officer, so he really cares about whether we have enough exercises in our daily life. Since I was in elementary school, he brought me to jog with him on the playground. Rounds after rounds. Until I was big enough, I started to run on my own. From the playground in the school to the roads outside of it. Usually, I prefer a 3 Km when I go back home. Therefore, I design my own jogging route in Nanzih.
Before jogging, I go to the Nanzih Elementary School and warm up. After all these years of jogging, stretching your body is the most important thing. It can prevent you from getting hurt and help you perform better. Along the walls of Nanzih Junior High School, I always like to take a look on my left side. There are a lot of students need to go to cram schools across the school on weekends. Every time when I see them working on the test papers, I feel so happy because I am not part of them, which makes me enjoy jogging more.
Turning right when the fire station is around the corner on my right side. There are various kinds of fitness equipments and basketball stands on the back of the station, which make me envy and try to add firefighter as my possible future job. However, I heard that sleeping with corpses is part of their training program. Thus, I think I will never play basketball with them.
In my point of view, I will divide Nanzih into two parts. One is the food and college students part and another is farms and train station part. The later one is where I live. Therefore, after turning left, farms that planted watermelons or vegetables will keep accompany me until the next two blocks. When I jog to here, I will slow down a little bit, taking a few deep breaths and helping those farmers check if there are thieves stealing their crops.
The halfway of 3km almost ends here at the end of the farms. If my condition is allowed at that day, I will head to the National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology. The school is so large that they have long slopes and stairs, which are the perfect natural treadmills. Whenever I want to improve my cardiopulmonary endurance, this is the best training place. However, I always feel ashamed when I come here. The elders always run faster than me. They can even do sets of push-up and pull-up while I squeeze the whole strength of my muscles, ending up lying on the floor.
Jogging has been my favorite sport since elementary school. It helps me clean up my minds and make me be more patient. However, as the student of NSYSU, I have to admit that school playground is also a good place to jog. When I am jogging, the magnificent sunset, mountains, sea are around me, which amaze me every time. Nevertheless, I am not exaggerated, but I think Nanzih is the best jogging spot in Kaohsiung. It’s not crowded and the roads are wide enough to run wherever you want. Also, you can appreciate the country scenes and even feed the horses if you jog toward the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery, which is super close to Nanzih.
