Monday 10 January 2011

Thank you for the music

Day:         22
Distance: 6.55 km
Time:       34:37 secs
Calories:  504

Rarely in the field of marathon training have music and running come together in such perfect unison.

I was only supposed to be going out for a 35 minute run at an 'easy' tempo following yesterday's 17km run, but when your ipod treats you to such perfect explosions of rock n' roll as "Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra)" by the Vaccines, "22 Grand Job" by the Rakes and "Blitzkrieg Bop" by the Ramones one after the other there's no way you can settle for a slow pace. None of those songs weigh in at more than 3 minutes (in fact "Wreckin' Bar" comes and goes in just 1:24 secs), but they are exactly the kind of songs that really fire me up. I've checked Run Keeper and for the first kilometre of this run I was averaging just under 4.5 mins per km - that's the kind of speed I run at for a 10k race - and I've absolutely no doubt that this tempo was down to the urgent, punky energy of each one of those three songs.

Obviously, I can't have a 5 hour long playlist consisting solely of songs like this - for one thing I'd be shattered well before the finish line - but they play an absolutely crucial role. I can well imagine one of those songs picking me up when my energy levels and pace are dropping and today they helped me to forget about my weary legs.

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