When Being Active Isn’t Healthy
It seems like this was the summer that stand up paddleboarding (SUP) made it to the mainstream on the east coast. I was shocked the first time I looked out one of the windows at work and saw people doing it on the Potomac River.
Well, one of them is doing stand up paddling, the other is just paddling!
After some of my favorite bloggers wrote about how much they enjoyed stand-up paddleboarding, I jotted it down on my summer bucket list.
Then, one evening when my husband and I were walking along the Georgetown waterfront, watching the kayakers and stand up paddleboarders, and I was about to tell him about the next adventure I had in store for us, I saw this sign.
When I was growing up, the Potomac River was known for its pollution. They’ve made a lot of progress in cleaning it up over the years, but as this sign shows, the local sewer systems can’t always handle all the waste and rainwater, and sometimes the overflow gets dumped into the Potomac. Now, we’ve had a relatively dry summer, but I still can’t fathom getting that close to water that might contain raw sewage.
Even if I wore water shoes like this guy,
I think I’d at least get the heebie-jeebies, if not a real infection!
Maybe we should try try kayaking instead …..
Do you check on the pollution status of your local river, lake or beach?
Is there a health fad that you are wary of because you aren’t sure it’s really healthy?
If you want to read about some of the adventures that sparked my interest in SUP, check these out:
![The Ultimate Coffee Date](http://got2run4me.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Ultimate-Coffee-Date.png" "The Ultimate Coffee Date")
thanks for the link love! 🙂 🙂 that's really disgusting about the pollution and that would definitely detour me from going in there too!!
You only need to worry about levels after a really big storm – this only happens a handful of times a year in DC. And when people hear "raw sewage" they think of household sewage, but it's just runoff from the storm sewers on the streets that gets diluted quickly. SUP and the like get canceled if pollution/bacteria levels are too high, so you have nothing to worry about.
Signed, I swam 1500 meters in the Potomac on Sunday and am perfectly fine.
BLEH!!!! I purposely avoid water activities in the Potomac for this very reason. 🙂
Thanks for the link love! I’m with Victoria but I guess everyone has their own tolerance level or threshold for what they are and are willing to expose themselves too. I mean, I swam in the Hudson after a big rainstorm (which they have done a great job cleaning up but still) and I surf in NYC so… 🙂
I’m sure part of it comes from hearing how badly polluted it was when I was growing up.
Ugh – not a fan of being in water that has sewage in it, near it, maybe close to it!!!
I do want to try SUP – the waves in Florida were a bit intimidating but maybe next summer!
BTW – I love the changes over here – they are recent right? I hope I’m not that unobservant!!
Oh, I’d have to try it in still water first!
Playing with the comment set up again – welcome any suggestions!
I really do love SUP, but would agree I don’t really want to go out in sewage…ewww!!
Kayaking would be a safer option. It’s easier for an SUP to flip over. One wrong move and you’re swimming in sewage water.
Here in Portland the Willamette River runs through the city cutting the downtown/westside from the eastside. I would never ever swim in the Willamette for the same reason! They have the same warnings about sewage after rainfall and it’s gross!!
Tonight I just read an article about the water from Virginia that goes into the Potomac too! Maybe worse than SUP is the people who fish in the river — and presumably eat the fish!
I don’t check the pollution of the lakes here before I swim in them, and I’m happier not knowing.