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Treadmill Tips

A. J. Jacobs, Healthiest Human, Listens to NPR on Doublespeed

A. J. Jacobs Via City Paper/Nigel Parry.

"I listen to NPR podcasts when I work out," said A. J. Jacobs. You may recall A. J. from our interview with him last year. An editor-at-Large for Esquire and bestselling author of Know It All and The Year of Living Biblically, Jacobs is now working on a book (unofficially) called The Healthiest Human Being in the World. The book is due to his publisher February 1st, and so we went out to lunch to compare notes on fitness culture. He was coming from a Cross Fit workout that morning, and had a Bacon-Lettuce-Tomato-and-Egg sandwich, sans the "B," or the bread. "I wasn't taking it seriously enough," he explained. "But I've only got five months, so I'm getting pretty hardcore."

Jacobs' books are a trilogy. First came mind, then spirit, and now he's on body. The range of his research seems to have led to some astute observations. "Those Cross Fit people are just as evangelical as Southern Baptists," he said. I nodded vigorously. I'm always ranting about the similarity between group fitness culture and religion. Anyway, that's how we got on to treadmill habits, and he made me laugh....

"Yeah, I like to listen to NPR's Your Health podcast," he said. "But I listen to it on doublespeed. It's great. The only problem is that when you talk to people, they seem to be talking really slow. But if you listen to William Hurt on doublespeed, he's still slow. William Hurt needs triple speed."

It was a fun lunch, and now we all have an important workout tip.