Saturday, April 18, 2009

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...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Ring of Fire! Fulsom Prison Blues! Walk the Line! Ghost Riders in the Sky! Man in Black! What fun...I could run right along with you!

Tattoos and Teething Rings said...

Sounds great; maybe you could throw some Guns 'N Roses in there somewhere, to make it a perfect list :)