I gave up jogging long ago. Why? I’m so competitive I couldn’t jog for my health’s sake. I had to have a stop watch, and then a chart, and then personal records — for each day of the week, and it got to be annoying. So, though it took some arm-twisting that messed with my male ego’s thought that walking wasn’t something athletes did (and I should have realized that I stopped being an athlete when I was about 22), I began to walk daily with Kris. Now I’ve found something in Frederick Buechner that makes me feel good:

Jogging is supposed to be good for the heart, the lungs, the muscles, and physical well-being generally. It is also said to produce a kind of euphoria known as joggers’ high.
The look of anguish and despair that contorts the faces of most of the people you see huffing and puffing away at it by the side of the road, however, is striking. If you didn’t know directly from them that they are having the time of their lives, the chances are you wouldn’t be likely to guess it.

Beyond Words, 191.
Walkers look happier. Look, I was a cross country runner in my high school days; my father was a cross country coach — in fact, he began the cross country program at our high school. (The Freeport Pretzels.) It’s not that I don’t think it was fun; it was. And I suppose that running is a little healthier than walking, but man it hurts my knees — and the look on those runners faces.

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