What’s on your running playlist ?

John Rankin asked on his blog “What’s on your running playlist ?” There have been some great responses from various people on what they listen to whilst running and some great music choices.

At the moment, most of my running is taking place in the evening in the dark, so headphones are not really an option as I need all of my senses to make sure I do not get run over (despite wearing a yellow safety jacket!).  However, weekend runs and treadmill sessions mean that my iPod is in use.

For fast runs or interval sessions, I usually listed to either Fat Boy Slim (You’ve Come A Long Way Baby) or the Arctic Monkeys (Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I Am Not).  For me, these two albums have the right mix of uplifting tempo but also allow me to slow down for the jog recoveries.  I can get away with only choosing between two albums (even though my iPod has a few more on there that I use when I am at work to help concentrate) as my intervals sessions or pace runs are rarely performed at a time that I can use headphones (as I mentioned, it is usually a dark, night-time run).

For my long runs, though, my iPod is always charged and synced with iTunes, because I love listening to Podcasts whilst I run in the daytime.  I have a long list that I alternate between, so in no particular order:

• Radio Five’s Fighting Talk (topical sports chat)
• James Richardson’s Football Weekly on Guardian Unlimited
• Manager Tools
• Newsnight
• Chris Moyles Radio 1 show
• Russel Brands Radio 2 show
• 43 Folders (personal productivity podcast)
• The Project Management Podcast

These are all spoken word podcasts (no music) and serve the purpose of taking my mind off the running.  Having said that, over the last few weeks I have realised that as I have become more focused on pace and less on HR zones, I am concentrating more on running and not taking in everything in the podcasts.   It still works though, as my mind needs to be occupied when it is not thinking about the run.