The Music

As you may know (or not, depending on how often you read my posts), next week (eek!) I am competing in a three-race series here in Jacksonville called the Tour de Pain.  I have been conditioning myself and building endurance and speed all summer in preparation for my first half marathon of the year in November, and I figured that signing up for a series of short races would help me add to my conditioning and strength training as well as see how I match up to my personal racing expectations.  Running and training for races keeps me very disciplined; I may complain about it but I enjoy following a strict schedule and getting in my daily runs and workouts.  After all, running is the best cardio out there!  But, as much as the physical training is important, there are a variety of other factors that can enhance or harm race readiness.  These include weather, quality of workout gear, proper running shoes, and-my personal favorite and the purpose of this post-the workout playlist.  I always run with headphones in.  Recently I started using Spotify Premium because of the better music selection and flexibility in creating a playlist without having to listen to commercials.  Before a race, I will make my playlist "available offline" so that I can run on airplane mode without any distractions (via text messages, emails, etc.).  Here are some of my favorite running songs that I have compiled this summer into my training/racing playlist.  Next week I will specifically tailor three playlists for each of the three races I am running.  But for now, here they are:

What's on your running playlist?  Do you have any suggestions?  Comment them below; I'm always looking for new songs & types of music to get my heart rate up and feet hitting the pavement!