BODY WATCH : Discovering Foreign Countries on the Run

My favorite benefit of physical exertion will always be a higher allowance of chocolate consumption. But I cannot deny that exercise adds measurably to my overall energy level, especially when I’m traveling.

If I have flown through six time zones, eaten food of dubious origin and slept fitfully on unforgiving surfaces only to be rewarded with a panoramic view of Acme International Headquarters, I will feel cheated.

Sure, conducting good business is its own reward, but a pair of running shoes and a reasonably game attitude yield much higher interest for life on the road.

For me, running is replacement therapy. It replaces almost any other exercise that proves untenable for lack of time, facility, companionship or clement weather.

I run. I despise it.

But on the road, I am uncharacteristically willing to suspend my animosity. I have discovered that running in a foreign environment not only assuages the guilt that comes with sampling the local cuisine--it is, after all, only polite--but it enables me to examine unfamiliar territory in a wholly personal way.

On my first trip to Australia many years ago, I was faced with the prospect of a day spent slammed in the back of a minivan with eight other journalists shuttling between presentations of questionable interest.

From my Grampian Mountains accommodations, I arose early the first day for a run. It was drizzling as I set out on a lonely dirt road. The soapy odor of lemon gum trees weighted the air and I happily splashed through huge puddles, rendering them puddlettes. Suddenly, about 20 yards ahead, an enormous gray figure bopped forcefully across the road and into the dense, scrubby bush. It was my first unfettered kangaroo, and I was thrilled.

Half a mile farther, an open plain flattened off to my right, revealing an awesome society of emus, stalking along in purposeful motion. Nothing, including my photographs of the trip, is more indelible than the memory of that smell, that rain, those animals.

I am not a remotely fast runner--although I recall a pastoral run in Northern California when a sudden, scuffling noise from the thick underbrush along the road propelled me into a world-class sprint. I would never be confused with dedicated competitors whose thigh measurements are roughly equivalent to those of their biceps.

But I’m a steady runner, and I’m fit. My mind is more willing to concentrate on work after I have worshiped at the temple of my body.

Other cultures, apparently, agree.

At first, Hong Kong seemed an exciting, big Asian city that was little different from exciting, big Western cities. My mistake.

In the morning as I jogged along the Kowloon waterfront, square in the face of the rising sun, otherworldliness crept in. Junks rolled patiently on the lapping water. At the edge of a small greensward, a number of caged birds watched eight or 10 elderly Chinese lost in the balletic practice of tai chi. Although I was not impeding their routine, my footfalls were audible and I felt like an intruder.

Upon my return to the hotel, I asked the concierge about the birds.

“Pets,” she replied, “need exercise too.”