The body in motion through a landscape is doing something that goes beyond exercise — it is rehearsing the oldest human relationship with the world, the one in which you were part of the ecosystem rather than adjacent to it. This is why running in nature feels different from running on a treadmill, and why the difference matters more than the distance covered. Nasreddin ran only when being chased, but he noticed that people who ran regularly seemed to be outrunning something else entirely.
Each step builds on the last.