Gubatron

I love running and I love reading.

I got into running more seriously last year, I got addicted to it while training for half marathons and the Ing Miami Marathon. As a result, I think I over did it, and now every time I try to run past 6 miles I get a very discomforting pain on my right knee.

I got into reading when I lived in NYC, my favorite place to read was the NY subway, I would often miss my station because I was deep in whatever I was reading. There was this tight relationship between walking into the subway and reading that I loved commuting back and forth to work. When I left NY and started working from home it seemed like the only time left I had for reading was going to bed, and you guessed it, books now put me to sleep.

As a result of all this I have a pile of books waiting to be finished and I’ve gained 30lbs.

I was recently skimming over books at Barnes & Nobles and got hooked with the beginning of “The Facebook Effect”, but I knew that If I spent the almost $26 on it it would end up with the rest of my other recent book purchases, unfinished.

Then I remembered that the kindle is cheaper now and that I could give that a try, but I don’t think I need another device for reading, so I gave it a try and still bought the electronic version of the book (for kindle), only that I’d be reading the book on the tiny little screen of my Android phone with Kindle for Android.

Being a person that can’t really be sitting in one place for too long (unless I’m working), instead of running I decided I will walk for longer periods of time while doing something I’ve not been able to do, read. Walk and read. This is something that I couldn’t do with a paper book, at least not with the ridiculous amount of sweat that can pour out of me, also holding the pages from turning would be really weird, so I decided I’d try to do it with the phone, I’ve been reading so many websites and blogs when I walk that a book might also be doable.

So this morning I grabbed my Android, Audio Headsets and snickers and started a 7 mile long walk (about 2 hours and 23 mins), during which I was glued to the screen of my phone reading “The Facebook Effect”. The Kindle for Android (like Kindle for Mac on which I’ve also been reading on) allows you to configure font sizes and background colors in many ways and when compared to paper you gotta admit that it’s just better.

The form factor of the phone, I think for the purpose of walking and reading is much better than that of the real kindle device, it fits very nicely on one hand, plus you can have all this other stuff running at the same time: Pandora to stream music and so that you keep a decent walking pace (4 min. per km.) and Cardio Trainer to keep track of the workout (on a map).

The result today, in one walk, I read 11% of the book and I burnt aprox. 1450 calories.

If you think paper is better than ePaper/screens think again, and objectively. You probably like paper better since you’re used to it, that’s how you learned to read, but there’s so many benefits to reading on a screen: It’s lighter, bookmarks can be synced to other devices, fonts can change, background can change according to your conditions (dark or light), references are hyperlinks, and if you ever move you won’t have to carry lots of books with you. In the end what matters is the content of the book and you’ll be able to digest probably even better if you make the effort.

I think I’m gonna go for another walk tonight at 7pm.