How to get fit with Books and Stationary
Before the spelling police turn up to arrest me, that does say stationary, not stationery. It’s a reference to my new (to me) stationary bike, or noncycle as I like to call it. Unfortunately, as fabulous and life-affirming as a fine stationery stash is, I’m yet to discover a way of incorporating it into a workable fitness routine. Running a ten mile circuitous route to post a letter might count, but in my experience, sweat and rain plays havoc with an address hand-written in ink.
Then, there’s the running. Since staggering through the London marathon last year, my running dwindled, and finally ground to a halt. If you devote so much time to the serious tasks of reading, writing, watching football and knitting, as I do, losing your running mojo is a disaster. So, on a whim, I bought an exercise bike, and I’ve come up with a way of not only countering all my sedentary reading, but a way of squeezing in even more books into my week in the process – Boom!
3 wheels = Tricycle
2 wheels = Bicycle
1 wheel = Unicycle
0 wheels = Noncycle
So far, the whole family have been taking turns to pedal like demons every day. Initially my wheel-bound hamster imitation involved telly viewing to help pass the time, but then I struck on the idea of listening to audiobooks while I pedal. As time stretches interminably when you’re exercising, the audiobooks I choose need to be pacey and gripping. So far, daily instalments of ‘David Copperfield‘ have been a great way to pass the time while I work up a sweat, but I think I’ll also be digging out some classic crime fiction which will keep me wanting to pedal for longer. One thing’s for sure though, however much I love him, I definitely don’t plan to pedal to Proust anytime soon!
Lucy
Sarah
If there’s an audiobook of Proust, I need it to be in a French accent. A bad one. And yes, not to noncycle to, but ideally to walk about markets buying bread and flowers, but all the markets here sell are cheap lighters and wolf-printed fleece jackets, so that wouldn’t work, either.
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I can’t think while exercising. I do it to music, and it has to be catcy and aggressive. As soon as something gets complex exercising becomes torture.
Exercising while watching TV sounds like a better idea. You get to catch up with the world’s morons without completley wasiting your time.
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I used to enjoy listening to music while running but since moving to Wales I’ve had to stop. The country lanes are narrow and as I have a dog in tow when I run I have to be on the look out for cars hurtling round corners at speed. Music definitely improves running, but I’ve got used to silence and find that exercise makes for really productive thinking time. That said, there’s a whole world of difference between building up the long slow miles of marathon training, and intensive intervals and speed sessions. It might be that I save the audiobooks for easier sessions, and use the tv for the tough stuff!
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Interesting idea. Do you detect any lowering of blood availability to your brain affecting your absorption of the text? If so, I suppose that could be countered by re-reading, which is always something to show off with – ‘oh, once you’ve read Ulysses for the the third time …’
I wonder if audiobooks work in a full gym workout? Mind you, other gym members might get disconcerted by any laughter or crying.
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Oh man, someone needs to open an audiobook gym , and pronto. Just imagine, you could have so much fun choosing just the right books for each form of exercise – ‘we currently have spinning with Herodotus in room 3, Pilates with Proust in room 5, and Dumbells with Dante in the weights room’. I would go to that gym.
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Anyone finishing their session who looks close to death would presumably have been exercising to erotica.
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Or Thomas Hardy. Extended exposure to acute pastoral melancholia whilst under cardiovascular duress has been scientifically proven to cause significant reduction in the will to live.
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