So, after a cross training day on Saturday (at least that's how I'm referring to 2 hours on the dance floor at a friend's wedding) and a day off on Sunday (which I can neither confirm nor deny had anything to do with the alcohol consumption during said cross training), I was back to running today. I can't say I was really in the mood for it, but I decided that today's weather was perfect running weather (we went from 95 two days ago to 65 today) and my only other excuse was that I was tired.
I did decide to mix it up a little bit today and see what kind of difference music would make on my run. I normally like the time to myself to think about things and I find that music just distracts me. But, what the hell... I've got at least a year of training ahead of me, so I might as well take the time to try new things. What I got from running with my ipod was a few different things... first and foremost, 90% of my play list is drinking music. And, while this is certainly fine for hanging out with friends, it's not exactly helpful when it comes to training. I've decided it's time for a play list just for running. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. The second thing I learned was that I was completely accurate - music while running is a total distraction from everything else in my life. I never used to be a fan of that fact, but I suppose lots of other things change over time, so why not this. I found that I love the distraction. My run flew by like it was nothing. It doesn't take a whole lot of songs to fill 27 minutes and my run was over before I knew it. I can only imagine how much better it will be to have songs that actually fire me up instead of make me thirsty.
The best part of my run was the last 3/10 of a mile... obviously part of it was the fact that I was almost done, but more than that, it had started to rain and I was headed north running directly into the oncoming wind... such a fun reminder of what I used to put myself through in cross country so many years ago. I decided I needed a good song to finish with. Not knowing what all was in my play list and not having a ton of time to decide, I just flipped through the next few songs until I found one that seemed appropriate. My 5k run was capped off with the first 56 seconds of "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" by Dropkick Murphys. I can't say it's my favorite song in the world, but if the first minute of that song doesn't fire you up, I don't know what will... although I suppose it also requires a love of Irish music :)
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