From the None issue of Runner's World
It's a miracle. Three miracles.
One: I'm doubling time's yield. My running hour is also my reading hour.
Two: It's true that in this age of multimedia, all I get is words, but these words are choice. These words have been picked out, mulled over and then put down by men and women who knew what they were doing. Churchill, for instance, won the Nobel Prize for literature. Words may be as close as we can come to his most precious essence.
Three: While running, my own essence is exposed. Churchill has my attention, as do Philip Roth, Andrew Marvell, and Ken Follett.
In vino veritas. If there's truth in wine, then there's also truth in sweat. I've been lied to over lunch. I've been lied to over dinner. I may--for all I know--have been lied to in bed. I don't believe I've ever been lied to on a long run. Quite the opposite. Distance compels an alarming level of candor. Sit around with neighbors and you hear about lawn care and how to get that toddler into Harvard. Run 10 miles with the same armor-plated acquaintance and you'll find out how his father died, or whom she's always loved.
These confidences are matched by the susceptibility of the listener. I don't know how to explain this, but heavy breathing rules out deceit. I ran through the fires of adolescence with my eldest son. "Why were all the windows open in your room this morning?" Our rule: If you have enough oxygen to lie, then you're not running hard enough.
Tragically, not everybody runs. Enter recorded books. I can run now with people I've never met. I can run with people who might despise the sport.
Doubtless Oscar Wilde would have had something coruscating to say about jogging. To get back to my youth," he said, "I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable." And yet I laughed so hard listening to "The Importance of Being Earnest" that it broke my stride.
I can't catch Cleopatra's eye or even take an oar on her barge. I can't ride into battle with Alexander the Great. I can watch Alexander in a movie, but it won't be Alexander, it'll be Colin Farrell. The history will be cooked.
I can, however, savor the actual prose of Marcus Aurelius, Samuel Pepys, and Henry David Thoreau. Get recent, and you often get the author's voice as well. We have Churchill's roar complete with the static squalls of old-time radio.
