Here is an interesting post on walking from a fellow Blubber Blogger.  I liked it because it was about C. S. Lewis, one of my favorite Christian authors.  You can read more from Denise's blog by clicking here. I've been going through some boxes of books I had still packed away from out move here.  One I'm reading through again is called Faith-based Fitness by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper - the medical program that uses spiritual motivation to achieve maximum health and add years to your life.  It is quite interesting, esp. for the beginner exerciser. But I was surprised to see a quote from CS Lewis inside entitled A lesson in How NOT to Vary your Exercise. The Cambridge don and popular Christian philosopher C.S. Lewis was a great walker, and he enjoyed sharing his walks with others who could carry on a stimulating conversation.  But on one occasion, he made the mistake of varying one of his outings by taking along a less than compatible companion.  Here are some excerpts from a letter he wrote to his brother on March 20, 1932. You asked Mrs. Moore in a recent letter about this Crashaw man.... I had to go for a walk with him.... it seemed good to him to take a bus to the station and start our walk along a scrubby path between a factory and a greasy strip of water.... He is a ladylike little man of about fifty, and is to a T that "sensible, well-informed man" with whom Lamb dreaded to be left alone.... I blundered at once by referring to the water as a canal. "Oh, could it be that I didn't know it was the Thames? Perhaps I was not a walker?"... A conversation on weather followed, and seemed to offer an escape from unmitigated FACTs.  The escape however was quite illusory and my claim to be rather fond of all sorts of weather was received with the stunning information that psychologists detected the same trait in children and lunatics.  Anxious to turn my attention from the unpleasing fact, he begged my opinion of various changes which had recently been made in the river. As I had never seen any of the mentioned places before ("But I thought you said you were a walker...?) this bowled me middle stump again... But I must stop my account of this deplorable walk somewhere.  It was the same all through-- sheer information. (a very effective public school education hehe) Time after time I attempted to get away from the torrent of isolated, particular facts; but anything tending to opinion, a discussion, to fancy, to ideas, even to putting some of his infernal facts together and making something out of them-- anything of that sort was received in blank silence. --from W.H. Lewis ed., Letters of C.S. Lewis pp 150-151. Lessons from Lewis on exercising with a companion: One of the best motivators for sticking with an exercise program is to find a "soul mate" who can make you look forward to each outing. One of the biggest deterrents to an exercise program is to dread having to meet a companion who is "out of sync" with you.  I expect that if Lewis had been forced to face the prospect of walking with this particular man every day, he would have given up walking altogether and perhaps turned to a treadmill instead!From Faith-based Fitness p. 158.