The OF Blog: Exercise and Reading

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Exercise and Reading

It's interesting how (re)starting one thing can affect something seemingly unrelated.  I haven't read as much this year as in previous years (only at 319 books read so far this year, my lowest number for this date since 2008), but until recently, I was even below the average of a book a day that I had maintained since 2008's 385 books read.  I had little motivation for reading, since I had little energy for doing much of anything outside of maintaining my daily post here due to my recent back and kidney stone issues.

Then I was able to resume gym workouts this past weekend for the first time in months.  Although I'm going very easy right now (lower resistance on the exercise bike, short reps/sets on weights, fewer stations than usual), I've found myself finishing over a dozen books since Sunday.  Weird how things like that happen, although some of it no doubt is due to reading substantial portions of several e-books during the 20-25 minutes I've been on the exercise bike these past five days.  Curious to see how things will be after my (finally!) surgical procedure tomorrow (I mistakenly thought it was scheduled for last Friday).  I think there will be some pleasant surprises in store for the rest of the year.

Now to see about reducing that backlog of unwritten reviews after the procedure...

6 comments:

Bill said...

Hope the procedure went smoothly, Larry. Look forward to upcoming reviews…

Bill

Larry Nolen said...

Thanks. It went well, minus not realizing I had passed it a couple of hours before the procedure. Oops :(

Mondy said...

You may have explained this elsewhere, but how do you finish a book a day?

Larry Nolen said...

I typically read around 200-300 pages/hour without trying (can skim upwards of 700/hr., but rarely do that) and I rarely read books much longer than 350 pages. I read maybe 1-2 hours a day on average.

Mondy said...

Wow. I've been reading all my life and I've never pushed beyond about 60 pages an hour.

Larry Nolen said...

It's not something I could teach another how to do, alas. I taught myself how to read and I see words as images; they all converge at once and I somehow understand it all.

 
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