Jane Phare talks to “active commuters”, Kiwis who don’t need the gym because they keep fit by running or cycling to work. They say they save money, help the environment and improve their physical and mental health.
Auckland sea kayak expert Nic Mead devotes more than two hours of each working day running to and from work. As far as he’s concerned, that’s not a minute wasted.
Mead, who runs from his Titirangi home to his business, Auckland Sea Kayaks, in Mt Eden each day, views it as precious me-time. With two youngsters at home, aged 1 and 4, life is full-on after work.
“When I get home my time gets stolen,” he says. “I was getting a bit disgruntled by not having any time for myself.”
After moving to Titirangi in 2019 Mead used to drive to work, assuming that was the only option.
“I always thought work was too far away to run or bike to. I had this mental block in my head.”
But then sitting in traffic and feeling grumpy when he got home didn’t seem a good option either.
“I wanted to go to the gym and get more fit but the issue was I never had any time.”
He started biking to work a year ago and switched to running four months ago, dropping his gym membership which he was no longer using.
He runs 13.5km each way to and from work, with each leg taking about an hour and 10 minutes.
To trick his brain into thinking each 70-minute run is the first for the day, Mead wears a different set of clothes and changes his running shoes.
“I pretend it’s not the same day.”
He showers at work and nips across the road to Countdown to stock up on much-needed breakfast calories before taking kayaking groups out on the harbour.
Running that distance and for that length of time each day wasn’t easy at first but now Mead is hooked. He says it’s good for his mental health and he uses the time to think.
“I use running for my meditation, my thinking and processing time and I would not do that in a car.”
After the run commute he’s ready to engage with his young son and daughter, and no longer feels “frustrated and grumpy”.
“When I turn up at home I’m a lot more relaxed, and I’ve had my time.”
When Aucklander Sophie Flood and her family moved back from Britain in 2020 as “Covid refugees”, one of her main requirements when buying a house was that it had to be close to a bike lane into the city.
She and husband Matt and their two sons, Wilkie, 6, and Benji, 4, settled in Mt Albert, a five-minute ride to the first bike-lane link. On weekday mornings Flood loads the boys on to the back of her family-sized e-bike and sets off on a daily commute. She drops Wilkie at school, Benji at daycare and then links into the northwestern cycle lane to the CBD where she works as head of new property development for Chorus.
The former lawyer, who manages a team that arranges the delivery of fibre into new builds, says the e-commute helps her juggle a busy life and to keep fit.
“Your quality of life is vastly improved by being able to do your exercise on your way to work. If you can combine the two then you don’t need a gym membership.”
The drop-off and commute take 25 minutes, a trip that would extend to 45 minutes if Flood took the bus. And she’s in control of her timing, knowing almost exactly how long her commute will take each way.
“That sort of reliability for me is invaluable. On the days that I do have to take the bus, I really hate it because it’s so much slower, it’s stuffy and I don’t get the exercise.”
In addition, the e-ride leaves Flood in good shape to start the working day.
“You arrive at work, you’re awake, you’re alert, you feel so much better. My blood’s pumping, my brain’s working.”
On her way home the bike commute helps her disengage from the day, she says.
“If I was on a bus I would be on my phone still doing emails, still working, whereas I’m forced to do 25 minutes of clear head space [when riding} which means when I get home I can give the kids my full attention.”
In addition, the family save by having just one car, which Matt uses to get to his job on the North Shore and to do pick-ups when the weather is bad.
“It’s pretty efficient. If I didn’t have that easy-to-control commute I think we would really struggle.”
Auckland photographer Dean Purcell sometimes beats his wife to their West Auckland home from work in the city when she drives and he rides.
The father of three has been an active commuter since 2019, pedalling a total of 46km each day from his home in West Harbour into the city and back.
He cycles about 4km from home before joining other commuters on the northwestern cycleway. It takes him just over an hour each way, cycling at a steady pace. And what’s not to like about it, he says.
Purcell ticks off the positives: he’s saving hundreds of dollars a month of car maintenance and fuel, parking and a gym membership; he’s keeping fit; and he’s doing his bit by keeping one more car off the road.
“You get to work, go and have a cold shower and you get out and you feel amazing.”
He estimates his active commuting outgoings add up to around $250 a year, the cost of a new bike chain and a couple of tyres.
Purcell also views those cycling hours as precious thinking and creative time.
“It’s a good time to just let your mind wander. You can just relax, you don’t think about negative stuff, it’s generally positive. It’s a good way to switch your brain off a little bit.”
That doesn’t happen when he drives a car, he says, because of the concentration needed or because he’s listening to the radio.
Purcell says he feels the benefits every day that he cycles to work.
“I talk to guys younger than me who say they get out of bed and they’re creaking and feel like they’re 75. I can spring out of bed, no issues. Every part of my body doesn’t ache, it’s strong.”
And there’s something satisfying about riding along faster than the traffic on the motorway, he says. Some days he arrives home before his wife when they leave the city at the same time.
“I’ve jumped on the bike and she’s jumped in the car and I’ve beaten her home.”
Wellington physiotherapist Emily Solsberg has run to work for the past 13 years and says most of her colleagues commute that way.
Staff parking at Wellington Hospital where she works is virtually non-existent and with only one car in the family of four, her run commute is the most practical option.
Solsberg runs 7km each way between her Wadestown home and the hospital, lengthening the route to 12km when she’s training for a marathon or an event. Towels, a shower and lockers for clothes at the outpatient clinic make it easy.
With two school-aged children, Solsberg doesn’t get a lot of spare time and says the work commute is the easiest way for her to train and keep fit.
“It’s the only time in the day that I spend by myself. It’s very precious.”
Solsberg started running when she was 21, and now trains with colleagues at the Wellington Scottish Athletics Club at weekends and on Tuesday nights.
She estimates she runs about 4000km a year and says apart from buying new running shoes three or four times a year she has no other commuter costs.
Running, she says, makes her feel good and she has no plans to give up commuting on foot.
“You’re killing two birds with one stone by having your exercise and getting somewhere at the same time. I would be a worse person if I had to go through the day without it.”
She doesn’t mind the weather Wellington throws at her but draws the line if she thinks she’s going to be blown off her feet.
“I used to live in Canada. Wellington is much more hospitable than Canada.”
Auckland social media expert Mitch Powell cycles 10km each way to work and back from his home in Meadowbank specifically to keep fit.
“If I can commute and get my exercise it means I don’t have to go to the gym which is a place I despise.”
The ride from home, along the Ōrākei Basin cycleway and on to Tāmaki Drive, takes just over 20 minutes. Powell, head of social for NZME, showers and changes at work in the company’s bike locker facilities and can be at his desk in 40 minutes. By comparison, the bus takes an hour and a car takes about the same time.
Nearly a year ago Powell decided that a couple of rounds of golf at the weekend and the occasional surf was not enough to keep him fit as he approached his 30s. His girlfriend’s parents, who run a cycling business in Taupō, lent him a bike to try and he was hooked.
“It is just such a nice way to start your day. You’re next to the water and have this beautiful view. It’s just got to be good for you, more so than if you’re squished into the bus with 50 other people who are equally miserable.”
Powell, who listens to golfing podcasts while he rides, says the commute has got shorter as he’s become fitter.
“I’ve got muscles on my legs I never had before.”
He knows that when he’s feeling tired or the weather’s bad it would be easy to cancel the ride.
“But the alternative for me is to go sit on the bus so it’s real easy for me to get on my bike.”
The benefits of regular exercise have been well documented, both to improve physical and mental health. The Heart Foundation encourages Kiwis to sit less and move more, saying physical activity helps lower blood pressure and keep the heart healthy, improves sleep, reduces stress and helps with weight management. Regular physical exercise is also known to reduce the risk of cancer and other diseases.
Fran McEwen, active recreation manager for Sport NZ, says the physical and mental benefits change over time, from childhood through to older age. The trick is to find movement, be it walking, running, cycling yoga, dancing or skateboarding that works throughout your life, she says.
McEwan, a keen ultra-distance trail runner, says one of the barriers to physical activity is that people are time-poor.
“They’re juggling being parents, working full-time and all the other things that go into life.”
Regular exercise is the first thing that drops out of a daily or weekly routine when people get busy. Fitting exercise into a daily commute is the ideal solution, she says, and brings multiple benefits.
Shaun Robinson, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, says there are very clear, scientific links between physical activity and boosting mental health, including recovery from, or protecting against, depression.
He talks about the happy brain chemicals – dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins – that are increased and released as a result of being active. That could include brisk walking, gardening, kapa haka, team sports, dancing as well as more vigorous workouts.
Robinson is bipolar and uses anti-depressants to help manage the condition. However, he points out that anti-depressants help to stop the brain from losing hormones like serotonin too quickly.
“But it doesn’t create it. It fills the hole in the bottom of the bucket, so to speak, but I still have to fill the bucket. Physical activity is part of my regime at managing my mental health.”
Robinson walks, goes to the gym and cycles as part of what he calls “lifestyle medication”.
Evidence shows that even two hours of moderate exercise across a week has a positive impact on mental health and is a protection against depression, he says.
“It doesn’t have to be hard out athlete-type physical activity. What we say is ‘do what you can to enjoy what you’re doing.’”
International research has linked leisure-time and transport-related physical activity to the prevention of mental ill health, but the same does not apply to work-related physical activity.
International research journal Science Direct published a paper in 2020 by academic researchers in New Zealand, Australia and Brazil which outlined the positive connection between physical activity and mental health.
Conversely, work-related physical activity, including housework, was associated with mental ill-health, the journal said. The association between physical activity and mental health was not purely because of physiological mechanisms.
“Factors such as enjoyment, mastery of skills/goals, autonomous motivation, choice, social interaction, and a sense of belonging likely influence the relationship between physical activity and mental health.
“These factors are more likely to be present when undertaking physical activity for leisure or transport purposes, rather than for domestic/household or work purposes.”
Jane Phare is a senior Auckland-based business, features and investigations journalist, former assistant editor of NZ Herald and former editor of the Weekend Herald and Viva.
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