Horses For Courses - The Right Music For The Run

Not a week after we returned from Singapore, my second iPod Touch went on to it's eternal reward. Apple, in their infinite wisdom(?) decreed the cause of "death" to be immersion or exposure to fluid. I unsuccessfully tried to explain I live in a part of the country where humidity is a way of life. The only way to NOT expose electronics to fluid is to hermetically seal it within a plastic casing, like the DryCase I reviewed months back. The positive of the DryCase sealing technology was countered by its size. I could easily carry the iPod Touch in a knitted pouch hung around my neck, access the on/off/volume controls, and so on. I didn't run with the iPod in Singapore because I forgot to take the DryCase along. Somehow the exposure happened. Nothing else can be done without spending a lot of money to repair the iPod.


So, I'm back to running without music.


It's a blessing and a curse. Running with music naturally provide mental stimulation, and allows runners to dissociate - tune out - the messages which often try to slow down or stop them on a run. For me, running without music - especially in the morning - provided the chance to tune in to bird songs, watch clouds move, and pay close(r) attention to my immediate surroundings. There are times it's nice to not have any distractions blaring into your head.


The first "non-musical" treadmill run, however, found me grooving voluntarily to a John Mayer tune in the back of my mind. I recalled entire albums of music from memory before on road runs, because Walkmans were heavier and had lousy battery life.

Running author Hal Higdon mentioned in social media posts the favorite pieces of music he would listen to during treadmill workouts. Higdon liked classical music, including Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. "Horses for courses," triathlon coach Brett Sutton would say, while it works for Hal, I think I'll avoid the 1812 Overture and the climactic cannonade...at least on the treadmill. We all have our own personal tastes. And, as I used to tell my students, "there is no such thing as bad music."


So, what's the best kind of music to listen to when running?


An English sports psychologist studied the effects of musical performance, and considered tempo to be everything. In his opinion, most commercial dance tunes and rock music seemed to fit best, having a tempo which ranged from 120-to-140 beats per minute. Music professors, fitness buffs and medical professionals seem to agree a tempo which aligns with specific workout motions is the best for the activity.


When I think about the music I've "channeled" during some of my best races, it falls into the 120-to-125 beat-per-minute range. My best long runs, however, are in the 160-to-180 (or 80-to-90) beat range. Of course, good grooves are everything. Punk and hard rock - styles which often make a concerted effort to break the "comfortable" groove - are probably the least desirable genres for running.


Ah, but horses for courses.


There are a variety of sites on-line where you can find new music at a desired tempo; other sites allow you to find old favorites or in different genres. There are also great workout podcasts available for download, with music mixed to a particular tempo. One site I'll send some love out to is http://www.djsteveboy.com/. Steve Boyett has several mix podcasts which are among the iTunes Store's top downloads. His Podrunner casts feature many independent and out-of-the-box musicians, mixed at tempos ranging from 120 to 180. The most recent series has tempo progressions which mimic pyramid and tempo workouts...all of them are around 60 minutes and include warm-up and cool-down segments.

Making the treadmill workout a little less dull can take some time and effort on the part of the individual runner. There are tempo-defining programs which can help catalog the runner's music collection, or the workout at a particular pace can be downloaded from the internet.

And the "horse," when matched to the right "course," can make an hour's treadmiling less...boring.

Ask Coach - March 2008

When I took over the coaching position for ECRT, I originally wrote the club's newsletter. Since I'm a typical guy (literal translation: lucky to do one thing correctly at a time) multitasking - it was a choice between writing communications and writing workouts. So, I chose workouts and told the new club secretary he would write the newsletter. He decided to throw rhetorical/actual questions he thought of and heard from folks asking about our training, etc., at me each month. Here's a sample of the ones from this month...

Which books on running do you recommend? Sometimes I need a little motivation to come work out on these cold nights.
I have good news and bad news. We won’t have too many cold nights after this month… that’s the good news. The bad news is we’ll have 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity. But I digress. I’ll give three non-training-focused books I think every runner should read at least once, or once a year.

The first, ‘Once A Runner,’ is a classic, a book you search for your entire life, then read at least once a year (Stacie Rockhill has my copy, and I want it back!) during those dreary days when you cannot get out to run. John Parker wrote this novel loosely based on his time at the original Florida Track Club, back in the days when Olympians Jack Bacheler and Frank Shorter were there. I had the supreme pleasure to meet (and train with) the inspiration for a couple of characters in the book during while in college. I asked my wife to read it when we were first dating to help her understand the idiosyncrasies runners possess. However, if it comes to the choice between purchasing warm technical gear to wear on cold workouts and buying OAR, the price might be equal, as this book is out of print and hard to find. If you are fortunate enough to get Parker’s follow-up, ‘Again To Carthage,’ wait to read it until you read ‘Once A Runner.’

The second, ‘Running With The Buffaloes,’ chronicles a season with the University of Colorado cross-country team and their coach, Mark Wetmore. Chris Lear’s development of a team dynamic and the trials of collegiate athletics are only two of the major themes in this book. Reading Wetmore’s philosophy of coaching and the method by which he develops training plans will help you understand some of the challenges as you look at your own training.

While I want to recommend Lear’s follow-up book, ‘Sub-4:00: Alan Webb and the Quest for the Fastest Mile,’ I think Dean Karnazes’ ‘Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner’ is better motivational material. “Karno” runs the gamut from talking about his passion for Starbucks, to describing his first (failed) effort at running the Badwater 150-Mile Run, to balancing corporate life with family and running. Two visuals come to mind as I recall the book: First, the starter who climbs a boulder to read the soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Henry IV (the “band of brothers” speech), before firing a shotgun to start the Western States 100-Mile Run. Second (and there’s a photo on the back cover), the photo of Karnazes at the South Pole showing what it takes to run in Antarctica…makes me laugh out loud. The dietary list from his 250-plus-mile run that frames this book (It’s an appendix, but don’t read it until you get to the end, okay?) is enough to make you topple. Or input the number to the nearest Round Table Pizza on your cell phone. I disagree with Outside magazine’s description of Karnazes as ‘America’s Greatest Distance Runner,’ but he definitely has a rare and special quality.

I’ve read that a serious runner should get in interval miles, long miles, tempo miles and easy miles. At the track, aren’t we overemphasizing interval training at the expense of the other types of training?

I‘ll start with the rhetorical question, ‘what is serious? And what does that mean to me as a runner?’

What we do at the track should only be a small part of your training, with long miles, (more) tempo miles and easy miles on the days you aren’t there. For example, I run easy on Monday afternoon, do interval work on Tuesday and Thursday, and a long tempo run on Wednesday. Sunday is my day to do either a long, easy run or a long bike ride (I also swim and ride a stationary bicycle as cross-training and to train for multi-sport events.). Some of what I have been reading says (in contrast) older or less-experienced runners will benefit more from increased aerobic-pace training than from interval work; after a time the younger runner needs interval work to continue speed development. But, don’t get hung up on what you read and consider it as the norm. Remember what works for the local running stud (or stud-ette) or the elite runner might not fit your needs. If you need help in developing a training plan to meet your running goals and touches all of those elements, (and includes rest,) please speak to me at the track, at the Deli on Friday night, or any time you can dial my phone.

This isn’t a question, just a comment – I am so glad that we are running the trail for our warm-up instead of two miles on the track!

I’m as glad for it as you are. We all need a little bit of diversion, and the trail warm-up allows that. You’ll get to run out on the trail as warm-up for a longer period this summer: I draw the line after I receive a bite from those nasty yellow flies.