I used to run without music, and sometimes I still do. The joy of being alone with your thoughts is wonderful although it takes some getting used to. For the first ten minutes, I’m like a frog in a blender. My thoughts are all over the place but after a certain amount of time, a kind of Zen calm takes over and I find I can do my best thinking while out on a run. However, once I started increasing the distance, I found I needed distraction and a bit of stimulation. The littlest things can get on your tits. The sound of your own feet. A recurring scrap of music that plays over and over in your head. Heaven help you if you have anything jangling – keys, for example or zips. I bought a radio from the Nike store that goes round your arm and I find that tuning into Hauraki for a bit of white trash bogan rock is a great way to spur me on if my runs are going to be longer than an hour. Sweet Home Alabama has got me up more hills than there are As in Alabama. My gorgeous daughter bought me an I-Pod for Christmas and my lovely Irishman did me a favour and loaded it up with Kate’s music library – but that means I have Queens of the Stone Age and Kings of Leon on high rotate and while a bit of KoL is fine, it feels like you’re wearing somebody else’s shoes when you’re listening to their music selection. I have absolutely no idea how to wipe her music and replace it with mine (basically, the Hauraki play list – Bruce Springsteen; the Clash; U2) and that is on the top of my to-do list as the runs get longer leading up to the Auckland marathon. So the long answer is no, you don’t need an iPod for the shorter runs, but you probably will for the longer ones.
Hi Kerre … I finally purchased your book this week and am half way through but even that was enough to get me back onto the treadmill. I placed the treadmill in the lounge room so that I would feel guilty sitting on the lounge looking past it to watch the TV. I’ve never been a runner, but at 41 and the realisation that I have to work on it now, I needed something to get me up off the lounge. With the motovation that I got from your book, I loaded my new walkman with a load of white trash bogun rock (yes, I am a Hauraki fan too). I put it on shuffle and walked, jogged or ran to the beat of the songs. Not wanting to stop before the song ended was a great way to push through some of those faster beats that had me running. I loved it and can highly recommend motivation by music.