I've been listening to audio books and hiking, and it's next to godliness. Just sweating, hydrating, looking out at the lake, and listening to Hemingway. My hike is about 1.5 hours plus 40 min of travel time so I get a lot of exercise in and a lot of books listened to. Three times a week and it comes out to 4.5 hours of exercise and I pound out one classic per week.
I've knocked out these in the last six weeks:
1984
The Road
The Alchemist
Catcher in the Rye
Brave New World
The Sun Also Rises
I used to belong to a health club and hated the elliptical and staremaster (misspelled on purpose). Even with music or entertainment I couldn't do more than 15 minutes. I also find classic books to be quite a labor to read through but audio books make them a lot more enjoyable. I actually look forward to my exercise now and it doesn't feel like work.
I even got a Jeopardy question right the other day!
In a Paulo Coelho novel,
a 200-year-old who can
transform base metals into
gold.So give it a try and knock out two birds with one stone. The books mentioned are all available on youtube as audiobooks. Plus many more so if you are a cheap bastard too, you are gtg.