Another Reason to Join the Go-Green Bandwagon...

I can still taste it. A mix of rotten egg salad and sulfuric acid. It was worst in the spring afternoons when the air was hot and thick. It stuck to the back of your throat and clung to every panting breath as we sprinted up and down the field. It was our home-field advantage. The thick, sour smog that loomed from the factory next to our field became our ally for those two halves; but by the next practice, it was back to being our biggest rival.

Air pollution and athletes don't mix. My lacrosse team swears that down the road one of us will have defective babies or some mysterious disease from hours of sucking the poisonous air, and we'll regret not sending letters to our state congressmen like we wanted. But even if we all keep our strong, healthy physiques and our offspring have the appropriate number of limbs and digits, there's reason for fitness buffs to worry about the supply of fresh O2.

As Dr. Homer Boushey of the Health Effects Institute explains in "The air we breathe" on CNN Paging Dr. Gupta's blog, typical breathing during intense workouts is through the mouth, rather than the nose. Problem? When dirty, polluted air is your body's fuel, that breathing pattern exposes you to more pollutants. And you don't have to be Al Gore to figure out what that does to your health.

That's why Haile Gebrselassie, 34-year-old Ethiopian marathoner, will pass on the summer Olympics in Beijing. The world record holder has exercise-induced asthma, and worries that it won't mix well with Beijing's chart-topping pollution levels. Even though Boushey doubts a short trip to the heart of China's economy will do significant damage to Gebrselassie's health, it's not a risk he's willing to take. Even if it means forfeiting his chance at gold.

While we may not be breaking world marathon records or shipping out to Beijing any time soon, the inconvenient truth is that we can't breathe easy. Unless we start making some green changes, fitness junkies could be taking their workouts indoors--permanently.