The science of jogging

It is not my fault that my attempt at jogging the other day was a dismal failure. First, there was that little bit of miscommunication Joe and I had when we set out, when he said, "Let's jog down to the park bench and back."

Now, this park bench is, admittedly, not that far from our house. However, the path is fraught with natural dangers -- steep hills, sharp turns, icky earthworms, etc. Naturally when Joe suggested that we jog to this park bench, I thought that he, who promised in front of many, many witnesses just a few short years ago to always concern himself with my welfare, meant that we would jog a few steps, walk several steps, jog a few more steps, then leisurely walk to the bench, sit down and enjoy the view for about a half hour, and recharge ourselves for the grueling return walk up the hill. This is what a sane person, who knows her limits, whose sole means of exercise consists of bending over to pick up the mail that is deposited through a slot in the door onto the living room floor, means by "let's jog to the park bench and back."

This is not what Joe meant by "let's jog to the park bench and back."

But if I had trouble jogging more than a few steps, I know where the blame lies. It is because I am at the top of the food chain (not counting mosquitoes).

In the food chain, there are producers at the bottom, herbivores above them, carnivores above them, and maybe other carnivores above them. All the organisms at any given level in this food chain use energy, which means there is less energy available to be used by organisms at the next level. With up to 90% of energy lost between levels, this has some serious consequences for those of us at the top.

Here is an illustration. In the typical food chain for humans, which goes thus:

plant--chicken filler--fast-food chicken sandwich--human

this means that, if the plant starts out, hypothetically, with 10,000 units of energy, barely 10 of those energy units make it all the way up to you, the top consumer. It is estimated that jogging requires approximately 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 energy units.

So a plant, let's say a blade of grass, which merely stands around all day, waving gently in the breeze, is getting more of the energy coming from the sun than I, who am expected to jog uphill to the park bench both ways.

As I see it, there are two choices if we want to have more of that energy than we are currently getting: 1) Consume more things that are lower on the food chain, or 2) become one of those things lower on the food chain. The second option, of course, occurs every day for certain students at the typical junior high school, although in that case it is generally not a voluntary process.

My only consolation is, after I get through using my 10 units of energy, there is only 1 left for the mosquitoes.