I’m a jogger. Putting my legs through piston-like paces, revving up my heartbeat, giving the gland that secretes endorphins a good bitch slap—for me, this is a critical therapy. I do it because I need to. But for simple enjoyment, nothing beats a stately, vigorous stroll through congenial terrain. So I take Jan Morris’s point in this passage from Pleasures of a Tangled Life, a collection of essays.
The human race was designed, in my opinion, not to jog for its physical recreation, but to walk. Most people look silly jogging, but one can walk with swank, one can walk with style, one can feel like General de Gaulle parading down the Champs-Elysées, one can observe with dignity the passing scene, one can converse without panting, smile without strain, and take one’s exercise with the composure that evolution evidently intended, when it stood us on two legs and made us lords of nature.
