My boyfriend has always said to me that I amaze him because I am ridiculously influenced by myself. That sounds a bit strange but I'm one of those people who will absolutely do something if I say I will do it. I can also turn into a major failure with a few doubtful thoughts as well. Music and running have gone hand-in-hand with me and I have had some amazing runs almost entirely because of the music I was listening to. I mentioned in one post about running in Dallas and having "Everything" by Lifehouse playing as I was running side-by-side with my shadow through the parched grass. "Everything" is pretty much the opposite of what you'd want in a running song, but it got me into this crazy mindset that made me feel amazing and for those 5 minutes or so, I felt invincible. For my 5K, I want to be able to perform my best, and music plays a huge role.
In my last 5K, I made a hasty playlist about 20 minutes before the race of a bunch of high-energy songs. They worked well enough, but I find sometimes with my high energy songs that it just becomes too much. I almost tend to zone out and the effect becomes negated. It's like going into a casino and being intrigued by all the noise and flashing lights... it's great and gets you pumped at first, but then after a while you get fatigued, bored, and lose motivation.
I began testing the waters today to see what song combinations would work well for the race. My goal is to run negative splits, so I opted for "Rapture" by Lio as my opening song. The song itself almost runs for 9 minutes, so it gets my first mile out of the way at a steady pace that isn't too fast and won't make me start off like a bat out of hell. The hardest mile for me during any run is mile 2. You don't have the excitement from the beginning of the workout and you haven't traveled enough distance to feel like you've accomplished anything, so I'm trying to beat the mile 2 blues with a few high-energy songs. "All Fired Up" by The Saturdays has been working well for me, as has "Jumpstart" by These Kids Wear Crowns. I also like "Bury Your Head" by Saosin (it's always my first song in a sprint session). "Long Way Down" by the Goo Goo Dolls has a perfect cadence, and "Ruby" by the Kaiser Chiefs makes my run happy. I won't get to run to all of those, but probably at least three of the five will bring me to my final half mile.
For my final half mile or so, I picked the most RANDOM song today. I was running to the usual cardio playlist when I was getting to that bored/almost-there stage and wanted to really push myself. I was running at 6.7 mph which is a fast pace for me considering I've only been able to REALLY run for the past 3-4 weeks. I had joked to my boyfriend that him and his mom need to play the theme from Chariots of Fire as I cross the finish line before, which led me to think about the one song that I've always found strangely epic: the theme from Requiem for a Dream (Lux Aeterna). I put it on my iPod years ago and I always smile when it comes on at work... it makes making maps really intense. So, in my final half mile, I ran to some very epic violins. The climax of the song hit with about 0.1 miles left, so I just kept running past the finish line (of my treadmill). I upped the speed to 7.5 and held the cadence for another quarter mile.
I've found my finish line song.
(Oh and people were complaining I don't have enough pics on my blog so here's me lifting weights yesterday... I thought I looked tank-y but I think it's just cause I have big boobs).
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