A Pilgrim’s Digression

For my exercise this morning, I climbed seven flights of stairs. Once up, once down. Seven flights.

I don’t know if stairs are harder on the lungs or legs. I was pretty oxygen-deprived when I reached the top, but then after climbing back down, my legs felt like a couple of Twizzlers. Ironically, I always thought of myself as being in pretty good shape from all the walking I do, but I am finding out that is not the case. Yes, I walk from Capitol Hill to Union Station once a day, about a fifteen minute walk, plus all the walking I do in between–from the house to the bus stop, from the Metro station to work.

Obviously walking is not the intense cardio workout people think it is. Maybe lazy people like me invented the myth that walking is good exercise to rationalize our lack of physical activity.

“Look, I walk from my chair to the refrigerator several times a day. That’s got to count for something!”

It sorta reminds me of these reports one hears occasionally about sex being good exercise. Who knows, sex may well provide a good workout, depending on the variety of Yoga-like positions implemented, and as long as the man lasts long enough. To make a sports comparison, for some people sex is like playing a full nine innings of baseball and scoring a triple homer in the last stretch; for others, it’s like a game of Little League ball where the batter always swings early.

Personally, I’d like to see scientists investigate the health benefits that accrue to women who perform intense fellatio several times a week, but that’s just a sign of how concerned I am about my wife’s health. I have only my wife’s best interests at heart.

Walking is overrated as exercise, though. I can walk from Capitol Hill to the White House at a brisk, city-dweller’s pace, and not break a sweat. I can’t run a hundred yards without nearly losing a lung.