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Articles & Tips > Music for Running
What's in
your iPod?
If you've been a runner for any length of time, and especially if
you've made the time commitment to train for a full or half marathon,
inevitably you've listened to music on an mp3 player to pass the hours
and hours of (let's face it, sometimes dull) training you have to do.
But when it comes to running or athletic training of any kind, not all
music is created equal, as we all know. There's types of music that
work and types that just don't. I think it probably has something to do
with the time signature or the "beat" of the music -- if I knew more
about it, I could probably identify whether it's 2/4 time or 4/4 time
that is more invigorating and energy-producing for runners, but you get
the idea.
The kinds of music that I've always found work best for me are driving,
guitar-riff-filled songs that start perhaps a little slow, but
accelerate through the opening beats of the song and give me a groove
that I can match with my footsteps as I run. While it's tempting to
pick a song like AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" (an
anthem in sports stadiums everywhere), a song like the Pixies' "Here
Comes Your Man" can work just as well if the beat is right for your
pace.
There is just one downside to mention when it comes to running while
listening to music, however. Running with headphones or with the
ubiquitous white iPod earbuds truly does shut out the world around you,
leaving you in what medical professionals call a "dissociative" state,
which leaves you out of tune with your body as you run. In a sense,
when you run with music you don't get a chance to "listen" to your
body, so serious runners would be advised to run at least some of the
time without music to "hear" what the body is saying.
"Power"
songs
That said, I do run with an iPod fairly frequently. And for all the
songs that I've downloaded, I keep coming back to the same song lists
when I need a pick-me-up to get me going for a training run. Here's my
list:
- "Vertigo," U2
- "Where The Streets Have No Name,"
U2
- "Cinco de Mayo," Liz Phair
- "Enter Sandman," Metallica
- "Dancing in September," Earth,
Wind &
Fire
- "Thunderstruck," AC/DC
- "Take Me To The River," Talking
Heads
- "American Idiot," Green Day
I keep thinking that others must have some better suggestions, though
--
so what's on your iPod when you run?
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