Regina resident runs 5 km in record-breaking heat wearing 3 masks

“Don’t try this. This is obviously super dumb,” Ryan Doka advised viewers in a TikTok video posted to his Twitter account.

The 26-year-old Regina resident ran five kilometres in Tuesday’s record-breaking heat wearing a total of three face masks to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

He documented the run in a video posted to TikTok and shared to Twitter.

Today it was 36°C in #YQR so I wore 3 masks and ran 5 kilometers to prove you can still breathe while wearing one. pic.twitter.com/DG5g9IJyFW

— Ryan Doka ❁ (@DokaRyan) August 19, 2020

“(On Tuesday) it was extremely hot out and I got the crazy extreme idea to go run five kilometres in 36-degree weather when there was a heat warning wearing not one but three masks,” Doka said.

He did it to prove a point to other Regina residents who do not have underlying medical conditions.

“I have to bring attention to the people who aren’t wearing masks yet. There have been so many people who’ve proved that masks are definitely better for other people, that it’s just about not being selfish and wearing one,” he said.

Doka is a digital media manager for Metrics Online Marketing, but in his spare time, he calls himself a content creator.

He enjoys creating videos for social media to make people smile and bring light to important issues.

Some of his videos on platforms like TikTok have had hundreds of thousands of views.

Doka described himself as an average runner.

“I run when I want to. I’m not the greatest runner of all time but I do tend to like running just to get that cardio in,” he said.

During his run Tuesday, Doka wore two standard disposable masks and one reusable mask made by his girlfriend.

The blue-and-white polka dot face covering was made of 100 per cent cotton.

“It’s pretty much like wearing two masks,” Doka said with a smile. “Imagine I was wearing four masks.”

Hot day

Twenty-six of Saskatchewan’s 32 regions were placed under heat warnings Tuesday morning, according to the Environment Canada alerts page.

Doka’s decision to run in this heat was one he made out of necessity.

“I hate running in the heat. If it was up to me, I’d run in the morning, but I knew that if you really want to make a statement you have to go to the extreme,” he explained.

He was inspired to do the run after seeing another person complete a similar feat while wearing 10 masks and smoking a cigarette.

Now reflecting on the experience, Doka said he didn’t feel it was that uncomfortable.

“It was bearable but I wouldn’t recommend anybody do it,” he said. “For the first kilometre, it was actually pretty average … for what I would run on a hot day. At about the halfway point it started getting a little bit difficult.”

The content creator forgot to bring water on his run, and that’s what he feels made the experience difficult.

“If I had water, it would have been smooth sailing all the way through but it was so hot. I was running in a heat warning so I was just sweating and my hair was getting in my face, even with the sweatband on,” he said, adding that aspect of the run was terrible.

To his main point, however, he did not find breathing difficult until his last half kilometre.

“At the last 500 metres it started getting a little bit of hot breath because it was just over and over and over again but it was not the worst thing in the world,” he said.

In fact, there was a positive to the experience: Doka, who is allergic to hay and grass, said he didn’t experience the watery eyes and runny nose he would usually have during an outdoor run.

He said he would even consider running in a single mask in less-extreme temperatures because of this.

“One mask would be a breeze,” he said.

While Doka is glad to have made the video — and his point — he said he isn’t likely to do that particular challenge again.

“I would never do this again unless I needed to further prove my point,” he said.

He did, however, say he would attempt the challenge in a desert, just to “really challenge” himself.

“If I can do this, then you can wear one mask,” Doka said to sum up his experience.

Going to extremes to make a point

This was not the first time Doka had endured extreme heat in deliberately uncomfortable circumstances for the sake of public awareness.

In a video posted last month, Doka sat in a hot car to remind people not to leave their animals or children in parked vehicles in summer.

In just over 10 minutes, the car reached over 65 C.

“Six minutes in and I am soaked to the bone and my steering wheel is boiling hot,” Doka said in the video. “I am completely drenched in sweat. This is insane.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an amended version of the story, correcting Doka’s place of work.