February 6th, 2010 / 11:48 pm
Behind the Scenes

Exercising with Exercises in Style

One of my favorite places to read is while running on a treadmill. Seeing as reading is powerful in its ability to render time null, and exercising is a space where time seems to stretch the longest, the most against the frame (though sometimes that is part of what makes the experience nice, in a wholly other way, other times you just want to get it done), reading, then, can create an amazing mental blank over the focus of physical exertion, separating, in its best moments, the body from the mind, while putting both to maximum work in enhancement of a kind. The ecstasy of reading, I mean, can cancel out, or at least sure as hell distract you from the bitchmaster that is fleshy exercise.

Obviously not all books are condoning of this kind of method. First off, since you are constantly being jostled even in the in-place one-space forward movement that a treadmill provides, you need a book that has a nice sized font. You need big margins and a good amount of white space also, as it gives the eye a bit of breathing room to bump around in as the body slightly vibrates, going on.

As well, the book has to be relatively short (you can’t hulk Gravity’s Rainbow on this bitch (though maybe there’s a barbell corollary in here I am missing, hmm)) and it’s nice if there are lots of short chapters, or numbered sections. Most novels, therefore, don’t work. Novellas are good, as are small collections, or oddly arranged texts of some unusual nature. A lot of poetry fits this definition well, with the added bonus of when you get tired of holding the book up (I use my right arm mostly, which begins to cramp about 40 minutes in) you can kind of begin to time the section or piece breaks with where you’re aching and then let your arm rest while you move inside what you’ve last read. Getting the rhythm down might take a bit, or a few iterations, but after a while, especially before the arm hurts, you begin to forget a little where you are. The feeding of the words among the space and the movement of your mind inside your body fit together in such a way that is almost as if you are sitting still, or better, as if you do not exist, the same way it happens when reading on a sofa or in the bath (my other favorite place to read).

Some recent books I read on treadmills that I remember working well:

Holy Land by Rauan Klassnik
Pilot by Johannes Goransson
Waste by Eugene Marten
Poemland by Chelsey Minnis

Some books are short enough that you can finish them in one running session, which feels really good to have done at once, not to mention that often times you will be able to run longer, because you aren’t as aware of the passage of time, and the goal of finishing the book before quitting sets a finite goal. Dual improvements.

Some might wonder if the quality of the read itself is vastly affected by the distraction, which surely it can be, especially in a loud gym. But actually, I find myself reading maybe even more carefully, or at least with greater emphasis in pause points, due to the precariousness of running while not fully paying attention. The reading actually makes you concentrate more distinctly when you are locked in, on each sentence, as they pass, and though the gaps between the concentrations might be shakier than if at rest (you feel wobbly, sweat starts dripping, you need to slow down, etc), it seems a more intense experience in both directions. Look and see, pause and breathe. It’s nice. At least it is for me.

Tonight I went running with Raymond Queneau’s Exercises In Style, which I honest-to-god didn’t realize was potentially funny in the obvious exercise overlaps (I am dense), but also for the illustrations on the cover of naked bodies contorting into shapes to spell letters. God knows what people in the gym with me would be thinking I was reading (beyond the fact that I’m reading while running fast in the first place). Luckily, or unfortunately, no one else was working out at 9 PM on a Saturday night. Oh well.

Running with an Oulipian turned out to be the perfect partner, in many ways. Not only does EIS fit the formal criteria of many short sections with big font and lots of white space, the general conceit of the book (wherein a short scene involving a man getting on a train, seeing a small kerfuffle, getting off the train, seeing one of the arguing men again is reiterated 99 times in various stylistic permutations, showing the many many ways to say the same thing, and how they differ, what they do) made the act of reading while running even more newfangled for me. I could not stop myself from wanting to play along with the book in my own way, paying untoward attention to the way in which I was running and how it made me feel.

So, as Queneau would skip between styles including playing the scene backwards, writing excluding a certain letter, writing in the form of a eyewitness report, writing in form of a telegram, a sonnet, a play, onomatopoeiacally, using negation, using specific senses only, using bias etc., I would alter my run in various ways I could control, such as speed and incline, walking or running, how to walk or how to run (with arms or legs which way), how to hold the book (left or right hand, with thumb and forefinger, splayed open with the palm), whether to have TV on (and loud or muted), how long to keep my eyes upon the page, how many to read before I would look at the room again, etc. There were so many ways to experience the reading even in the confines of exercising, and each exerted differently upon the book.

Queneau’s book is kind of phenomenal in that it makes the banal a magic way, by showing how any detail, however gunky, can do something to the text if rendered right. Nothing that happens in the original scenario is at all exciting, but it is the way, each time, the details are confabulated into a whole that moves past its self by form and structure, attentions and definitions, careful aiming, into something at least worth studying for its affect, and, as a group together, some kind of awestriking little glyph. Not all of the exercises might be extremely powerful alone even (some of them, in form, approach a gibberish), but in their collection, and in the mind of experience, they raise the level of the hardly passable to the an object to be remarked upon (the book has been named the most outstanding translation of the last fifty years, and surely the translation of these odd languages is something to be gawked at). It’s the kind of book that has a mind about its mind, and makes even more by its variance in repetition (like miles passing) than it does any particular minute in itself, as fun or funny or beguiling or impressive on a sentence level as any of the units are.

Still, oddly, even in such formal modes, I found that time went by in long blanks as it had with other books, if more orchestrated in the pause moments. Most nights, sans book, I run 30 minutes, at a constant speed and incline. Tonight my whole first 25 had elapsed before I even looked at the clock, whereas usually I’m always checking. As well, it was very easy, even knowing I’d hit my usual time, to continue going. Without knowing I would read all 197 pages in one run, I did exactly that. I really hardly even noticed I was doing work, excerpt for my attentions to the pages as they came on and where they ended, and, in the last 3 or so pages, the consciousness of incoming completion. I ended up going 7.12 miles in a little over an hour, with speed variation all entailed, and even at the end resorted to getting on a stationary bike to vary the last few exercises therein.

Effectively, then, because the book so well fit the form, and allowed me to expand, I doubled my usual run time, burned twice as many calories, time passed without the normal feeling of wishing it were over, and I finished a book I’d been meaning to read end to end for several years now. And though I probably will remember it different ways than if I had read it laying on my back, I kind of like that fusion, and the weird throe of what stuck harder and what might have slipped past me in the sweat. Still, the very conceit I might be missing something makes it that much more timely word by word, and that much more attended thereby to it. Hell, it might have even made me in the end remember more, especially with a book so rigorous in its own way: the running might have helped me distract to formal notions and taken the book instead more as a body on its own. Whatever the case, it’s something, and an experience I would recommend, and would wonder what else could be done there with it, and what books might best lend their way.

Though this process might be harder in more public gyms where you are surrounded by odd crowds, something tells me that might be even more fun, in another way. Or you might not even notice in the least: as there really is something amazing about the collision of extremes, and how it makes a book feel like an experience you’ve exerted your flesh and blood through, as if suffered through the book’s otherwise static worlds of magic work.

Coming soon from me to a library rental near you: Abs of Ouilpo, Buns of Borges, Pecs of Perec.

And maybe when it gets warmer: Reading while Hiking, Reading while Skydiving, Reading while Investing in Good Stock.

Tags: ,

82 Comments

  1. Ken Baumann

      Reading while Skydiving.

      Oh man. What text? Falling Man?
      And now I want to write a something with just that in mind: write the text that is best read in skydiving units.

      Great post.

  2. Ken Baumann

      Reading while Skydiving.

      Oh man. What text? Falling Man?
      And now I want to write a something with just that in mind: write the text that is best read in skydiving units.

      Great post.

  3. jh

      I think you’d lose weight faster using lipograms.

  4. jh

      I think you’d lose weight faster using lipograms.

  5. Ken Baumann
  6. Ken Baumann
  7. adam!
  8. adam!
  9. Blake Butler

      feneon’s novels in 3 lines?

  10. Blake Butler

      feneon’s novels in 3 lines?

  11. Ken Baumann

      hadn’t heard, now ordered. yess

  12. Ken Baumann

      hadn’t heard, now ordered. yess

  13. Lincoln

      great book!

  14. Lincoln

      great book!

  15. adam!

      with a funny typo!

  16. adam!

      with a funny typo!

  17. Vin Diesel

      wow. you/re really fit, blake. i have to really pay attention when i read something otherwise i won/t know what/s happening. and when i/m running i have to really pay attention to how fast i/m going and am i staying on the treadmill. because i will fall. maybe you should train for a 10k and raise some money for haiti. they could use it bro.

  18. Vin Diesel

      wow. you/re really fit, blake. i have to really pay attention when i read something otherwise i won/t know what/s happening. and when i/m running i have to really pay attention to how fast i/m going and am i staying on the treadmill. because i will fall. maybe you should train for a 10k and raise some money for haiti. they could use it bro.

  19. Roxane Gay

      I’m a treadmill reader too. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy my Kindle so much but I tend to read lighter fare. Am currently reading Joshua Ferris’s And Then We Came to the End.

  20. Roxane Gay

      I’m a treadmill reader too. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy my Kindle so much but I tend to read lighter fare. Am currently reading Joshua Ferris’s And Then We Came to the End.

  21. Derek White

      i can’t read on treadmills but reading on a stationary bike is nice. i can’t even watch tv on the treadmill. i just got Queneau’s excercises the other day, looking forward to it, maybe i’ll strap it to my head while running outside. as a sort of dangling carrot.

  22. Derek White

      i can’t read on treadmills but reading on a stationary bike is nice. i can’t even watch tv on the treadmill. i just got Queneau’s excercises the other day, looking forward to it, maybe i’ll strap it to my head while running outside. as a sort of dangling carrot.

  23. BAC

      I tried reading on the treadmill once and got something like sea sick and had to drink a bunch of vodka.

  24. BAC

      I tried reading on the treadmill once and got something like sea sick and had to drink a bunch of vodka.

  25. Sean

      Great post. Makes me think I need to write more about running, but I am denser than dense. I also like the idea of doing two things at once.

      I run almost exclusively on treadmills or trails (except for races), but reading doesn’t work unless at slow speeds. It seems, through practice, you have synchronized your arm with the movement. I used to run to nothing, no music, video, nothing, and thought that was important, but now I watch documentaries on long runs. I did 16 miles yesterday to Messner and some doc about an Illinois track team and then a Judas Priest parking lot short.

      I’m also about to buy that book you mention.

      Can you run and read at any mph? Like speedwork, Tabata (no), other workouts. Or just while putting in miles?

      Your focus is on respect for the book (good), but I would wonder if reading would take from the run. Some runs don’t need any outside influence. The run is the run. The workout exists in an alternate time/space, a time of movement, that you leave when done, but not really, it is in your after-burn, muscle, blood continues forward into the next workout. It is holy, I feel, and I once really felt that music, video, reading would be a sacrilege.

      I still be live this for SOME workouts. A truly long run may be different. But I wouldn’t want any stimuli during a tempo, or a “crucible” workout that takes you out of body.

      I am going to try reading my next long run, though. I just wonder is I will get dizzy trying to read and run.

      Lastly, did you get better at this? Like when you first read/run was it difficult, then you figured it out? Or could you just read/run at once?

  26. Sean

      Great post. Makes me think I need to write more about running, but I am denser than dense. I also like the idea of doing two things at once.

      I run almost exclusively on treadmills or trails (except for races), but reading doesn’t work unless at slow speeds. It seems, through practice, you have synchronized your arm with the movement. I used to run to nothing, no music, video, nothing, and thought that was important, but now I watch documentaries on long runs. I did 16 miles yesterday to Messner and some doc about an Illinois track team and then a Judas Priest parking lot short.

      I’m also about to buy that book you mention.

      Can you run and read at any mph? Like speedwork, Tabata (no), other workouts. Or just while putting in miles?

      Your focus is on respect for the book (good), but I would wonder if reading would take from the run. Some runs don’t need any outside influence. The run is the run. The workout exists in an alternate time/space, a time of movement, that you leave when done, but not really, it is in your after-burn, muscle, blood continues forward into the next workout. It is holy, I feel, and I once really felt that music, video, reading would be a sacrilege.

      I still be live this for SOME workouts. A truly long run may be different. But I wouldn’t want any stimuli during a tempo, or a “crucible” workout that takes you out of body.

      I am going to try reading my next long run, though. I just wonder is I will get dizzy trying to read and run.

      Lastly, did you get better at this? Like when you first read/run was it difficult, then you figured it out? Or could you just read/run at once?

  27. Brian Foley

      what speed on the wheel are you usually at to enjoy your reading? i’d always figured to be moving too distracting to read, but havent tried it.

  28. Brian Foley

      what speed on the wheel are you usually at to enjoy your reading? i’d always figured to be moving too distracting to read, but havent tried it.

  29. Tyler

      I agree. For me, the stationary bike is the best cardio equipment for reading because it involves less of the whole body.

  30. Tyler

      I agree. For me, the stationary bike is the best cardio equipment for reading because it involves less of the whole body.

  31. Derek White

      i also think the run is the run. this morning i woke up feeling like shit from running because running interferes with your ability to drink & i guess it doesn’t help that the only thing nutritious i had last night was the worm at the bottle of mezcal (as Justin T can attest to–thanks to everyone that came to our shindig btw), i tried exercising my demons on a stationary bike (since it was 15 degrees out) but i was reading Murakami’s running book & he was making me feel like a pussy for not running so i got off the bike & went for a run. even listening to music while running is a distraction from the running (not to mention that my shuffle doesn’t work when it’s below freezing). i wish i could read while running though, i’d get so much more reading done, but then in doing so both the reading & running get compromised into another activity altogether…

  32. Derek White

      i also think the run is the run. this morning i woke up feeling like shit from running because running interferes with your ability to drink & i guess it doesn’t help that the only thing nutritious i had last night was the worm at the bottle of mezcal (as Justin T can attest to–thanks to everyone that came to our shindig btw), i tried exercising my demons on a stationary bike (since it was 15 degrees out) but i was reading Murakami’s running book & he was making me feel like a pussy for not running so i got off the bike & went for a run. even listening to music while running is a distraction from the running (not to mention that my shuffle doesn’t work when it’s below freezing). i wish i could read while running though, i’d get so much more reading done, but then in doing so both the reading & running get compromised into another activity altogether…

  33. Ryan Call

      some of my favorite, sean, of your is the stuff you do about running. lthat one about the one marathon, the boston maybe, i like a lot

  34. Ryan Call

      some of my favorite, sean, of your is the stuff you do about running. lthat one about the one marathon, the boston maybe, i like a lot

  35. Blake Butler

      no, i totally agree that often the run is the run. esp. when running outside, i usually don’t take music or anything either. but when it is late at night (when i often run) or cold i have to use the treadmill, and it is hard for me to forget what i’m doing enough to make it an experience. so i usually take music or TV there to blank out the shitty surroundings.

      my preferred run is outside, in that forgetting, and hearing the breathing mode, for sure.

      this though i think i can use to teach myself to run longer. i always crap out around 3.5 miles and begin to torture myself to quit. i find the distractor is amazing to make me push harder. i’ll always prefer the outside quiet though.

      yeah, it did take some practice to learn how to not get dizzy. at first i would read bits and then dip out and take long breaks without looking, then come back to the book when i felt fresh again. that’s important, and you find you can do it longer, like the training of distance.

      i tend to run not super fast while reading, but fast enough. 7.4 on the treadmill is where i ran last night, which on the one i use is faster than the average fast run on ground. again, training up. it’s definitely easier slower, but you can get it used to it.

  36. Blake Butler

      i started a little slower than normal and then by the end was going faster than normal. just about acclimation. it’s easier to get used to than one might imagine.

  37. Blake Butler

      no, i totally agree that often the run is the run. esp. when running outside, i usually don’t take music or anything either. but when it is late at night (when i often run) or cold i have to use the treadmill, and it is hard for me to forget what i’m doing enough to make it an experience. so i usually take music or TV there to blank out the shitty surroundings.

      my preferred run is outside, in that forgetting, and hearing the breathing mode, for sure.

      this though i think i can use to teach myself to run longer. i always crap out around 3.5 miles and begin to torture myself to quit. i find the distractor is amazing to make me push harder. i’ll always prefer the outside quiet though.

      yeah, it did take some practice to learn how to not get dizzy. at first i would read bits and then dip out and take long breaks without looking, then come back to the book when i felt fresh again. that’s important, and you find you can do it longer, like the training of distance.

      i tend to run not super fast while reading, but fast enough. 7.4 on the treadmill is where i ran last night, which on the one i use is faster than the average fast run on ground. again, training up. it’s definitely easier slower, but you can get it used to it.

  38. Blake Butler

      i started a little slower than normal and then by the end was going faster than normal. just about acclimation. it’s easier to get used to than one might imagine.

  39. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      I really enjoyed this post.

  40. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      I really enjoyed this post.

  41. Derek White

      i wish i had a treadmill, especially for these cold mornings. it’s brutal. but i don’t have a gym membership anymore. treadmills are great for pushing yourself for sprints but yeah, withouth a book or TV it gets monotonous running at one pace. there’s also this psychological component to treadmills where you can quit any time. running outside, especially across bridges which i’ve been doing a lot lately entails a certain committment knowing you can’t just give up as you run all the way back.

  42. Derek White

      i wish i had a treadmill, especially for these cold mornings. it’s brutal. but i don’t have a gym membership anymore. treadmills are great for pushing yourself for sprints but yeah, withouth a book or TV it gets monotonous running at one pace. there’s also this psychological component to treadmills where you can quit any time. running outside, especially across bridges which i’ve been doing a lot lately entails a certain committment knowing you can’t just give up as you run all the way back.

  43. Blake Butler

      it’s funny tho, i actually find i run at a much higher pace on a treadmill, and longer. when i run outside, since i can’t measure my rate, i tend to run too fast and then wear out and walk/run a lot, whereas on a treadmill i can run pretty fast and the continuous motion of it keeps me there. i am much more efficient when the machine makes me go.

  44. Blake Butler

      it’s funny tho, i actually find i run at a much higher pace on a treadmill, and longer. when i run outside, since i can’t measure my rate, i tend to run too fast and then wear out and walk/run a lot, whereas on a treadmill i can run pretty fast and the continuous motion of it keeps me there. i am much more efficient when the machine makes me go.

  45. Derek White

      well yeah, there’s that, the machine does make you run faster, and i definitely work my ass off whenever i’m on a treadmill. my next 5cense post is gonna be about running and writing and murakami– he says a lot of things about running which also apply to writing, especially to writing novels or longer pieces that require the same form of commitment and concentration… it’s good to see others thinking/reading along these lines.

  46. Derek White

      well yeah, there’s that, the machine does make you run faster, and i definitely work my ass off whenever i’m on a treadmill. my next 5cense post is gonna be about running and writing and murakami– he says a lot of things about running which also apply to writing, especially to writing novels or longer pieces that require the same form of commitment and concentration… it’s good to see others thinking/reading along these lines.

  47. Sean

      The Murakami running book is great if you are a runner (and maybe writer), but the prose is flat and dead. I’ve read most of his books and I didn’t expect him to write “It is raining cats and dogs” and other such cardboard. I know it’s translated but so are the other books. I just thought it odd how he wrote that book.

      Did enjoy the 62 mile run chapter.

  48. Sean

      The Murakami running book is great if you are a runner (and maybe writer), but the prose is flat and dead. I’ve read most of his books and I didn’t expect him to write “It is raining cats and dogs” and other such cardboard. I know it’s translated but so are the other books. I just thought it odd how he wrote that book.

      Did enjoy the 62 mile run chapter.

  49. Blake Butler

      thanks tim

  50. Blake Butler

      does kindle make it easier to read and be steady?

  51. Blake Butler

      thanks tim

  52. Blake Butler

      does kindle make it easier to read and be steady?

  53. Blake Butler

      you kinda get used to the jostle after a while. it takes a little patience, but works out.

      i don’t think i’d like a 10k. i like to run when i feel it. schedules bonk my head.

  54. Blake Butler

      you kinda get used to the jostle after a while. it takes a little patience, but works out.

      i don’t think i’d like a 10k. i like to run when i feel it. schedules bonk my head.

  55. Michael Kimball

      Yes, a great book. Also, Markson might work, though you’d need repeated jumps.

  56. Michael Kimball

      Yes, a great book. Also, Markson might work, though you’d need repeated jumps.

  57. Michael Kimball

      I dod a lot of reading (and, sometimes, editing) on the stationary bike. I can’t explain why, but often my focus is much better while riding the bike than sitting in a chair.

  58. Michael Kimball

      I dod a lot of reading (and, sometimes, editing) on the stationary bike. I can’t explain why, but often my focus is much better while riding the bike than sitting in a chair.

  59. Derek White

      yeah, it’s flat, but i find his writing to be flat in general, but not always in a bad way, it’s easy to read. sometimes it pisses me off how easy things come for Murakami, like how he just decides to write a novel one day and does it or decides to run a marathon and does in a good time. but things come so easy for him that it’s reflected in his writing, not a lot of risk taking. It was also very piecemeal, and i think a bit lazy, like he had some essays the just cobbled together and called it a book, but still some good insights. yes, the section of the 62 mile run put me there with him, and the place he ran it in the far reaches of japan seemed like a place he used in one of his books, can’t remember which i think dance, dance, dance.

  60. Derek White

      yeah, it’s flat, but i find his writing to be flat in general, but not always in a bad way, it’s easy to read. sometimes it pisses me off how easy things come for Murakami, like how he just decides to write a novel one day and does it or decides to run a marathon and does in a good time. but things come so easy for him that it’s reflected in his writing, not a lot of risk taking. It was also very piecemeal, and i think a bit lazy, like he had some essays the just cobbled together and called it a book, but still some good insights. yes, the section of the 62 mile run put me there with him, and the place he ran it in the far reaches of japan seemed like a place he used in one of his books, can’t remember which i think dance, dance, dance.

  61. Ken Baumann

      I’m thinking the latter sections of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

  62. Ken Baumann

      I’m thinking the latter sections of Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.

  63. alec niedenthal

      This is hilarious and great. A couple of years ago I tried to read The Recognitions on a treadmill. I felt like vomiting after about five minutes of that.

  64. alec niedenthal

      This is hilarious and great. A couple of years ago I tried to read The Recognitions on a treadmill. I felt like vomiting after about five minutes of that.

  65. Corey

      I’m going to set up a counter-manifesto to all this! I feel vilified like I did in Grade 3 health class when I was chubby and the teacher kept looking at me as she spoke about the importance of exercise and the dangers of being overweight. I’m not overweight now, but I ride my bike at a limping pace and consider my waitering exercise plenty. Here I was defending my choice of no regulated exercise (like jogging) with, “no, I normally read at night.” You people have ruined my life forever! I say all this because Blake’s argument is compelling, that the altered temporalities of reading and jogging can intertwine in a manner that possibly adds to concentration and mnemonic longevity. Someone asked if I can write whilst working the other day, recommending taking notes on napkins in between serving a section, clearing tables. I am assailed on all sides.

  66. Corey

      I’m going to set up a counter-manifesto to all this! I feel vilified like I did in Grade 3 health class when I was chubby and the teacher kept looking at me as she spoke about the importance of exercise and the dangers of being overweight. I’m not overweight now, but I ride my bike at a limping pace and consider my waitering exercise plenty. Here I was defending my choice of no regulated exercise (like jogging) with, “no, I normally read at night.” You people have ruined my life forever! I say all this because Blake’s argument is compelling, that the altered temporalities of reading and jogging can intertwine in a manner that possibly adds to concentration and mnemonic longevity. Someone asked if I can write whilst working the other day, recommending taking notes on napkins in between serving a section, clearing tables. I am assailed on all sides.

  67. Roxane

      Blake, absolutely. I have been able to get so much more reading done because I’m not graceful and reading books on the treadmill was just too much for me. I always stumbled or dropped the book or put myself into perilous predicaments. With the Kindle I can both make the font bigger so I don’t have to lean in and also I just have to push a button to change the page. Nothing can replace holding a great book in your hands but at the gym, I am almost evangelical about my Kindle. I also use it on the stationary bike.

  68. Roxane

      Blake, absolutely. I have been able to get so much more reading done because I’m not graceful and reading books on the treadmill was just too much for me. I always stumbled or dropped the book or put myself into perilous predicaments. With the Kindle I can both make the font bigger so I don’t have to lean in and also I just have to push a button to change the page. Nothing can replace holding a great book in your hands but at the gym, I am almost evangelical about my Kindle. I also use it on the stationary bike.

  69. ryan

      To me combining physical exercise and reading would devalue the exercise too much. I consider exercise and reading to be my two non-sitting-on-the-floor-w/-eyes-shut forms of “meditation.” They put me back in my brain, put me back in my body. I love exercise, running. . . . the thud of step after step after step. Treadmills are great in their lack of ‘scenery.’

  70. ryan

      To me combining physical exercise and reading would devalue the exercise too much. I consider exercise and reading to be my two non-sitting-on-the-floor-w/-eyes-shut forms of “meditation.” They put me back in my brain, put me back in my body. I love exercise, running. . . . the thud of step after step after step. Treadmills are great in their lack of ‘scenery.’

  71. Blake Butler

      that’s the only good argument i’ve seen made for a kindle so far. i may have to get one for that alone. nice call.

  72. Blake Butler

      that’s the only good argument i’ve seen made for a kindle so far. i may have to get one for that alone. nice call.

  73. Jim

      The only thing I can think about while running is what will happen to me if they catch me.

  74. Jim

      The only thing I can think about while running is what will happen to me if they catch me.

  75. Lily Hoang

      When on the treadmill & actually running, I have to take of my glasses. So even if I wanted to read, I probably couldn’t make out the font. I do, however, read during warm up & cool down. I like to read funny stuff when on the treadmill. Relaxes any pain from the run.

  76. Lily Hoang

      PS: awesome post, blake. thanks.

  77. Lily Hoang

      When on the treadmill & actually running, I have to take of my glasses. So even if I wanted to read, I probably couldn’t make out the font. I do, however, read during warm up & cool down. I like to read funny stuff when on the treadmill. Relaxes any pain from the run.

  78. Lily Hoang

      PS: awesome post, blake. thanks.

  79. jesusangelgarcia

      I read half of Scorch Atlas on an elliptical, like I was plowing through the detritus myself. Good sweat, sweet reward.

  80. jesusangelgarcia

      I read half of Scorch Atlas on an elliptical, like I was plowing through the detritus myself. Good sweat, sweet reward.

  81. jackie corley

      i decide which cardio equipment i will use at the gym based on whether or not it has an adequate book holder/shelf that will serve as a book holder. i’m too scared to bring my nook to the gym yet for fear i will kill it.

  82. jackie corley

      i decide which cardio equipment i will use at the gym based on whether or not it has an adequate book holder/shelf that will serve as a book holder. i’m too scared to bring my nook to the gym yet for fear i will kill it.