Running Philosopher - Running with Music

A friend of mine has just lately started running as a philosophical experience. He had also just finished reading Murakami's 'What I Talk About When I Talk About Running' and decided to dust off his running shoes (You can read his account here).

I've been for a couple of races with him, (which despite him not running at all before, still managed to beat me hands down!) and have had quite a bit of fun. I won't quite say that he's any replacement for G as my favourite race buddy yet (for one, he's too darn fast for someone who doesn't train!) but it's been interesting. He's asked me before what I think about when I run and I had to tell him the truth - the only thing in my head is that continuous whiny voice in my head going on about another different part of me that aches.

The thing is though, that isn't entirely true. I've become so used to slagging off running (in a kind of experienced, nonchalant 'the pain and I are one' way) that I neglect to mention that there are times, certainly not all the time, that my mind wanders off and the run goes by in a rather pleasant flash. In the past year, I've become the kind of runner that has become way too reliant on my Ipod. If I forget to bring my music in to work, I'll start my run thinking it's going to be dull and boring. This really doesn't make any sense since half the time I'm listening to the same 5 songs over and over again when I run. I hate uploading songs into my Ipod and I only had the patience to upload 5 CDs before I called it a day. The irony of it is that I only listen to 1 of those CDs, and even then I only listen to 5 songs on that one CD. So it really can't be that the music is entertaining me. On a normal day I don't even like listening to music all that much! Maybe I need the noise to distract that voice in my head that shouts out which joint hurts. Or maybe I've become lazy about going to church and this is the one time I can fit in a huge powerful worship session.

The times I do forget to bring my Ipod, I start the run with a sense of dread - how am I going to go through a whole long run without music? But ironically enough, those runs have been the runs where the voice in my head isn't as active. Last week I forgot to bring my Ipod, for instance, and I got through the run pretty fine. I also tailed this random guy who became my pacer (and my pseudo running buddy) about half the way, but that's another story.

So the aim of my long long rambling post? I think from now on, I'm going to try to ditch the Ipod sometimes. I won't give up my powerful worship sessions altogether, but I'll try to go music-less at least once a week. Running with music just makes me all too aware of the whining in my head...you know, because I'm trying to shut it out therefore subconsciously I know it's there blah blah...

For all the stuff I was too lazy to put down last week:

Tuesday: 1hr Swim Training
Wednesday: Ran 6.02k in 46:38 mins
Thursday: 1hr Climbing
Friday: Ran 2.98k in 21:06mins
Saturday: 1hr Pilates