The dry sea­son in the Caribbean of­fers a great chance to en­joy out­door ac­tiv­i­ties like run­ning, cy­cling, walk­ing, and hik­ing, which are be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly pop­u­lar recre­ation­al choic­es. En­gag­ing in these phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties pro­vides var­i­ous health, men­tal, and so­cial ben­e­fits, mak­ing them ef­fec­tive, drug-free ways to sup­port a healthy lifestyle. Among these ac­tiv­i­ties, run­ning stands out as par­tic­u­lar­ly ac­ces­si­ble and ef­fec­tive as a vig­or­ous form of ex­er­cise with sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven ben­e­fits, es­pe­cial­ly in pre­vent­ing and man­ag­ing Non-Com­mu­ni­ca­ble Dis­eases (NCDs).

Glob­al­ly, the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WHO) recog­nis­es phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty as a lead­ing risk fac­tor for NCDs, in­clud­ing car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases (CVDs), Type 2 di­a­betes, and some can­cers. Run­ning di­rect­ly tack­les this is­sue by sig­nif­i­cant­ly boost­ing the body’s meta­bol­ic and car­diores­pi­ra­to­ry func­tions. Reg­u­lar vig­or­ous ac­tiv­i­ty, such as run­ning, has a no­table, dose-de­pen­dent ef­fect on re­duc­ing the risk of ear­ly death. Specif­i­cal­ly, run­ning strength­ens the heart mus­cle, en­hances cir­cu­la­tion, and sub­stan­tial­ly low­ers rest­ing blood pres­sure (both sys­tolic and di­as­tolic), help­ing to de­crease the risk of de­vel­op­ing hy­per­ten­sion (Lee et al., 2014; WHO, 2024). Ad­di­tion­al­ly, run­ners tend to have a 45% to 70% low­er risk of CVD-re­lat­ed death com­pared to non-run­ners (Lee et al., 2017).

From a meta­bol­ic per­spec­tive, run­ning sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­proves in­sulin sen­si­tiv­i­ty, help­ing the body use glu­cose more ef­fec­tive­ly. This is es­sen­tial for pre­vent­ing type 2 di­a­betes and man­ag­ing blood sug­ar lev­els in peo­ple with pre-di­a­betes and di­a­betes. Im­proved blood lipid pro­files—in­clud­ing high­er ‘good’ HDL cho­les­terol and low­er triglyc­erides—al­so sup­port meta­bol­ic health (Lee et al., 2014; CDC, 2024). As a high-in­ten­si­ty ac­tiv­i­ty, run­ning is high­ly ef­fec­tive at burn­ing calo­ries, aid­ing in main­tain­ing a healthy body weight and re­duc­ing vis­cer­al fat. This reg­u­la­tion of body mass in­dex (BMI) is im­por­tant for low­er­ing NCD risk, since obe­si­ty great­ly con­tributes to hy­per­ten­sion, di­a­betes, and can­cer (WHO, 2024). For ref­er­ence, run­ning 1 mile (about 1,600 me­tres) burns rough­ly 100 calo­ries, pro­vid­ing a sim­ple way to es­ti­mate en­er­gy ex­pen­di­ture.

Be­yond the core NCD ben­e­fits, run­ning of­fers es­sen­tial sup­port for men­tal well-be­ing and long-term phys­i­cal health. The rhyth­mic, repet­i­tive mo­tion of run­ning acts as a pow­er­ful ther­a­peu­tic tool, trig­ger­ing the re­lease of en­dor­phins and en­do­cannabi­noids as­so­ci­at­ed with the ‘run­ner’s high’. This di­rect­ly leads to im­proved mood, re­duced anx­i­ety, and few­er symp­toms of de­pres­sion (Nie­man & Wentz, 2019). Ad­di­tion­al­ly, reg­u­lar phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty helps boost brain health and cog­ni­tive func­tion, which are crit­i­cal for main­tain­ing think­ing, learn­ing, and judge­ment skills as peo­ple age (CDC, 2024).

The sense of mas­tery gained from set­ting and reach­ing run­ning goals—such as com­plet­ing a first 5K or beat­ing a per­son­al best—builds tan­gi­ble self-ef­fi­ca­cy and self-ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion. This feel­ing of achieve­ment of­ten spreads, pos­i­tive­ly im­pact­ing mo­ti­va­tion and self-es­teem in oth­er parts of life. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, run­ning is a weight-bear­ing ac­tiv­i­ty that in­creas­es bone den­si­ty, which is vi­tal for pre­vent­ing con­di­tions like os­teo­poro­sis, main­tain­ing mo­bil­i­ty and bal­ance, and re­duc­ing the risk of falls and in­juries in old­er adults (Move­ment Ther­a­py EP, 2025).

The grow­ing aware­ness of these sig­nif­i­cant health ben­e­fits is clear­ly re­flect­ed in the lo­cal fit­ness scene. Trinidad and To­ba­go has ex­pe­ri­enced a no­tice­able rise in 5K road races and char­i­ty fun runs. Events now take place at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing pop­u­lar sites such as Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah and the Bri­an Lara Crick­et Acad­e­my (BLCA), as well as in cen­tral, south, and east Trinidad. This in­crease in 5K races demon­strates a com­mu­ni­ty-wide em­brace of ac­tive leisure, trans­form­ing in­di­vid­ual health goals in­to so­cial and com­mu­ni­ty-sup­port­ed ac­tiv­i­ties (Trinidad Guardian, 2025). The man­age­able 3.1-mile dis­tance of the 5K pro­vides an ac­ces­si­ble en­try point for more peo­ple to in­cor­po­rate vig­or­ous phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty in­to their rou­tines reg­u­lar­ly.

This col­lec­tive mo­men­tum is like­ly to in­crease. As the 2025 dry sea­son con­cludes, fo­cus will shift to a busy 2026 race sched­ule, which al­ready in­cludes key events such as the FIRST RUN 5K on Jan­u­ary 4th and the NCC Car­ni­val 5K on Jan­u­ary 25th. These races, along with the an­nu­al Trinidad and To­ba­go Marathon, demon­strate the coun­try’s com­mit­ment to both com­pet­i­tive and recre­ation­al run­ning. Op­por­tu­ni­ties for phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty—whether run­ning out­side the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um or through neigh­bour­hood cours­es—re­main among the most ef­fec­tive ways to im­prove health and fit­ness. They of­fer an ac­ces­si­ble way to achieve op­ti­mal health, en­joy in­creased vi­tal­i­ty, and ex­tend lifes­pan, mak­ing 2026 a great year to es­tab­lish or re­new this vi­tal com­mit­ment.