Musical choices

All along I thought I'd have my playlist for the half-marathon sorted out by now. It's a day before and I've got little left to prepare. All of my physical activity is pretty much over and the only thing left between now and the race is a few precious hours.

That, and the composition of a playlist.

I've sort of anticipated this moment though. For most of this week, I've been abstaining from listening to anything that may end up on my playlist. On Thursday I listened to some Flogging Molly songs but not the ones I think I might throw on the playlist. Metallica has been minimal this week, as has been Johnny Cash and The Killers.

I listed to Prince a lot today. And the 80s channel on my Sirius. As much as I like The Cars, they probably won't make the cut.

So I've got about 2 hours 30 minutes worth of songs I need to come up with. In reality I probably will only need about 2 hours 15 minutes but you never know what will happen, and the last thing I want to do is to fumble around on my iPod as I'm closing in on the last mile of the race, or worse run in silence.

I think that I'll have to break down the music for the race in three parts, though not all parts will be equal amounts of time:

* Early, uppity songs. This will include Flogging Molly, The Killers, Red Hot Chili Peppers, maybe some Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, White Zombie, The Raconteurs... I can probably get in a good 30-45 minutes worth of songs from this group alone.

* The mellow middle. While I'll be hitting the middle miles hard, I want to settle into a comfortable rhythm and what better way to do so than listening to Johnny Cash? I'm anticipating a solid 40 minutes minimum of Johnny Cash. I've actually not allowed myself to listen to Johnny Cash for more than a few weeks because I want this middle part to be comfortable and not difficult.

* Heavy finish. Yep, it's all about Metallica in the end. I'll have some of their 8-minute symphonies in here (Orion, Call of Ktulu) along with some of the faster, hard-hitting tunes (Dyer's Eve, Fight Fire With Fire, Disposable Heroes). That last song... their bassist described it as a freight train and that's the perfect description. And that's what I'll need to get through the last portion of the race.

As much as race strategy plays a role in this half marathon, so to does the choice in music. I love my music and it's an important part of my running and training in general, so I've invested quite a bit of time in thinking this through. Now if I could just get to an actual playlist... I suppose instead of blogging about it I could have actually done it, but then I wouldn't have gotten to spend time on this blog...