Sweating to C.S. Lewis?

You may have noticed on the right sidebar that I have a "Currently Listening To" section and you might be surprised when you notice that it is not music. You might further be surprised that this month's listening pleasure looks like something that a 90 year old woman would be interested in. Alas, it's true.

Here's the progression of things. I would find myself in the gym getting super bored. My mind would be all over the place and I felt like it was wasted mental time. I would find myself counting other people's reps just to get through two more minutes of elliptical time. So I decided I absolutely had to find something that required focus and would get the time to pass. What makes time fly by for me? Reading! Why yes! Great idea! I will download a book on my iPod. This way, I'll get my workout in, eliminate boredom, AND "read" a few books all at the same time! Brilliant! So I went home and decided to download my first book. I really wanted something worth my time. I decided on C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, which I read quite a long time ago and had a vague memory of. My next workout comes around and I'm all set with my iPod in hand. Ready to workout and get some good "reading" in. Time is going to fly by! Wrong-o! What was I thinking?! C.S. Lewis while going up and down on an elliptical machine?! British accent, British sentence structure, C.S. Lewis' main concepts, not to mention the fact that (if you have ever read the book) the roles of God as good and Satan as bad are reversed because it is from a demon's perspective so this is really confusing. Really, what was I thinking? I have to reread C.S. Lewis paragraphs at least a second time anyway to grasp the concept. Why in the world did I think I was going to be able to master it audibly and aerobically? I did muscle through it with many rewinds and replaying chapters. Sometimes I would turn it up really loud, thinking maybe if it is loud enough I will have a better chance of following. This only elicited strange looks from the people around me. You expect to hear music coming out of one's headphones - not British accents that sound like they came from the Masterpiece Theatre - so this is understandable. I did eventually muscle through it with many rewinds and replaying chapters.

So this time I picked pure fluff: The Friday Night Knitting Club. Too much fluff actually. And no, I don't knit. It was on the bestseller list and so I just picked it and left for the gym. But, it does get the job done. My workouts are much more enjoyable. I think next time I'll go for somewhere in between Twist My Brain and Fluff. I am still getting the looks, by the way, for the non-musical soundtrack coming from my headphones...