My iPOD playlist is better than yours

While I was an early adopter of the cell phone (owing to my East Coast days) I am DEFINITELY a late-comer to the iPOD craze. I just got an iPOD Shuffle from my Boston-bound friends (Boston 2008, holla!) I have had fun the past week playing with the iPOD, podcasts and old songs I have on my computer.

I'm not really a running-while-listening-to-music kind of guy. I love to run and be absorbed by my surroundings. There are 2 exceptions: 1) At the gym: running on a dreadmill SUCKS! 2) On my way to/from work via Richfield. Richfield, I love ya, but I get so bored running the entire length of 73rd Ave. I know every house, every crack in the sidewalk, every barking dog for the entire length. I need a distraction. And typically, NPR/MPR provides the perfect distraction.

But, enter the PODCAST! Now I can get CarTalk, Marketplace, the news, when I want it! Woo freaking hoo. While I like that, what a boring blog entry that would be. I'm here to write about my music!

So tonight I ran home from work. I had already listened to my podcasts, so I listened to some of the 30 random songs I put on my Shuffle from my computer. Typically, these are pretty old songs! I learned a few things.

Great running songs include:

• Eminem's Lose Yourself
• Tom Cochrane's Life is a Highway
• Cake's Going to the Distance
• ANY Clubbing song. I particularly like that old-school "One More Time" clubbing song
  
• Foo Foo Fighter's Everlong (best workout/running song ever!!!)
• ANY Jimmy Buffett song...seriously
• Dave Matthews Band Crash, the hip-hop remix version. find it, it rocks!
• Tom Petty FREE FALLIN!!!!! (the caps and exclamation points are for you, Misty Mike)
  

The best song I listened to on my way home was Will Smith's Summertime. Since it was 65 degrees it was the first time I could actually fathom that summer is around the corner! Running in shorts and a t-shirt and STILL sweating was fantastic. Bring on summer!

Be careful about using music from these bands:

• The Beatles: seriously, not that great. When I'm 64 doesn't cut it when you're trying to hammer in the miles
• Dan Wilson, Dave Matthews, and Guster are definitely hit or miss. You'll know it when you hear it. I have to delete some of those. Great songs, but impossible to run to.

Favorite workout songs? I mean, besides Everlong. Nothing's better than that.

The only problem with finding great songs to run to is running too hard when you don't mean to. Between the warmer temps, my low running mileage this week, and those awesome songs, I put in my last 5 miles of a 10 mile run at a 6:45 pace. Whoops.

Oh yeah, and I'm running Boston again in 6 days (hence the whoops on running too fast!) A few years ago my running mantra was from Eminem's Lose Yourself. It's lame, but listening to it tonight reminded me that it can be fun to psyche myself up for races. So, for Boston, here's the old mantra:

"Success is my only mothaf**kin option, failure's not... So here I go it's my shot. Feet fail me not this may be the only opportunity that I got."

I can't believe I just quoted Eminem in a blog post. Shoot me now.