The topic of “what people listen to while running” has been pretty interesting to me. There are four basic things that I’ve heard people say: music, podcasts, audiobooks and… nothing! The last one threw me when I first heard someone say that, but I’m now a believer – to some degree… I have found that what I listen to varies depending on the type of running I’m doing, but I most definitely have a preference. Early in my 20s (so about 100 years ago) I heard a lot of people I looked up to talk about active learning. What I understood that to mean, was to listen to something educational WHILST doing something else. The biggest place that became a habit for me, was when I was driving. If you have a 30 minute commute each way to work, you could get an hour of learning in each day. Five days of that is pretty easy math, and at the end of the year you could add over 250 hours of “learning”, even if that’s the only time you ever do it in a day.
Enter: Long runs
Once you start delving into the training required to complete a marathon, you will find yourself spending a lot of time out running (pro tip). The way I see it, that is another version of the education on wheels, but instead on your legs. Sure, you can listen to hundreds of hours of music, but that is unlikely to help you double-dip with somewhat of a life-hack. Let’s dive a bit into the world of music to kick this off.
Musica
Music feels like the go-to for the vast majority of runners. I’ve heard all sorts of reasons why, but the most logical one tends to be about the BPM (beats per minute) and how it helps keep a cadence. Here is an article that helps you find your running BPM. When I started going out for regular runs again, I absolutely threw my headphones on and shuffled up my library for enjoyment. While it was enjoyable for the first few weeks, quite frankly I started to get pretty bored. Now I know the music enthusiasts will tell me 100 different reasons why that’s insane and probably because I wasn’t listening to the right stuff.
Regardless of your music tastes, I found myself either getting too worked up with upbeat music or getting tired of just listening to music for an hour plus. Given my desire to read and learn more, I realized this was a new opportunity for me to take advantage of the time. I decided to open up the books app on my phone and I bought a book called “Run the Mile You’re In” by Ryan Hall. If you’ve never heard of Ryan, he’s quite the legend in American distance running. He is also a Christian, so I was curious to hear how he was going to incorporate his faith into his running.
Audiobooks
Pretty quickly into Ryan Hall’s book, I realized I enjoyed the content a whole lot more than listening to music for the reasons I mentioned earlier. Aside from being more interesting than constant music, I was feeling better for “reading” more and I also found that I was focusing less on how I was feeling and more on the narrator. For runs that last for an hour or more, not focusing on the running is quite refreshing. Since I switched over to audiobooks, I’ve listened to a total of 20 different books. Those 20 books were all “read” at the same time as I was doing other things: running, driving, mowing the lawn, to name a few.
The very first marathon that I ran was the Virtual Boston Marathon, where I was alone on sidewalks and the sides of the road for over 4 hours. It was painful, and a true initiation into running the marathon distance. As somewhat of a accidental strategy, I chose to listen to “Hiroshima” by John Hersey. If you haven’t read the book, it’s about six survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima. There are a number of details that are brutally graphic, and overall it’s an absolutely horrific accounting of the experience for people in the city. I found myself so distracted about the various details that I felt that I had nothing to complain about. As I said, an accidental strategy that worked out quite well.
While reading audiobooks had been a welcomed change, some of the audiobooks were many hours of listening. Most of the books have been great, but I’ve definitely had a few that have been less engaging. I don’t remember exactly how, but I came across the book “Finding Ultra” by Rich Roll at some point. Without going into the details, it’s an incredible book and one that I enjoyed quite a bit. In learning more about Rich, I found out that he had a very successful podcast. I’d heard a lot of people talk about different podcasts that they listened to, so I decided to see what all the hype was about.
Podcasts
If you are where I was about 2 years ago, you may not understand what all the chatter about podcasts is for. Podcasts are essentially smaller audio shows or series that cover a specific topic. Some of them are a series that cover historical events. Some are interviews with various people and others are just pure entertainment. Rich Roll describes his podcast as long-form conversations that are “all things wellness”. The guests that he has on his show are all very intelligent and talk about some incredibly fascinating topics (in my opinion). I listened to one episode and was hooked immediately. I found that even discussions about things that I had no opinion or knowledge about were so interesting, and forced me to become more curious. I also liked that I could listen to an entire podcast in one or two runs, instead of over the course of 15+ runs like many of the audiobooks.
After getting into the podcast groove, I found a few other ones that I listened to but haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s out there – because it’s pretty overwhelming. If you are looking to learn more about different topics, I highly encourage checking out an episode of a podcast. There are tons of recommended lists that you can find out there, so slap a search into google and see what you can find. One of the best things about most podcasts?? They are free!
Nada
Don’t listen to anything. Not a single thing. Actually, listen to everything around you, unfiltered and uncut. A few years back, I went for a run with someone who told me they never listen to anything on runs. I thought he joking, because that sounded absolutely insane to me. My indoctrination had been that you HAD to listen to something when running – as if it was a rule of some sort. When I pressed, he explained that when he runs on the trails, he wants to hear all the sounds of nature. His reasoning was mostly for the enjoyment of nature, but he also had the practical sense of being able to hear if someone (or something) was near him.
When running off-road, you are often on single-track trails that don’t leave much room for passing. If a mountain biker or faster runner is coming up behind you, it’s much better to hear them coming – so you aren’t that obnoxious person blocking the entire trail AND you don’t get scared by someone “coming out of nowhere.” Outside of people, there are some dogs that are off leash that shouldn’t be and being able to prepare yourself for their assault (friendly or otherwise) is helpful too.
I tried going for a solo trail run without any headphones, and I immediately understood the recommendation. It added so many amazing layers to the experience, and allowed me to be more present and aware of the world around me. Just the other day I went for a run on the trails mid-day because it was gorgeous outside. I was running down by one of the ponds and as I came up to a section by the edge of the water, I heard something up in the trees rustle. I looked up and saw a massive bald eagle take off and soar out over the water. As my jaw hit the ground, ANOTHER bald eagle right above me took off after the first one. I’ve been lucky enough to see a few bald eagles in the wild, but this took the cake. I stopped and watched them fly away, and couldn’t help but think that I would have completely missed that if I had headphones in. When I’m on the trails, my eyes are always down, and the only reason I stopped to look up was because I heard the rustle in the trees. I wonder how many times we miss moments because we aren’t fully immersed in where we are…
What about racing?
My first few longer races (half marathon and longer) I listened to music during the runs. I can’t say for sure if it helped, but it was at least a net neutral. When it came time for my first in-person marathon in Chicago, I decided that I wanted to really experience the environment that I had heard so much about. Despite the fact that I got absolutely destroyed during that race, I was very happy to hear the crowds and the energy throughout the entire course. It felt like a way that I could give back some appreciation for the thousands of people that were there to cheer all of us on. Since then, I’ve opted for the same approach in New York, Boston and Philly, and plan to continue going sans headphones. To each their own, and do what works for you!
A few final thoughts
Try something new
If you’ve only ever done one thing for your runs, I recommend trying something new. I know there are a number of things that I haven’t mentioned that some people may rave about. For example, I’m sure there are some people who use a language learning app while running and love it! I have found that switching things up keeps running feeling fresh and can often be the thing I’m looking forward to even more than the actual running. The best news is that you can always go back to old faithful if you aren’t a fan of the new thing.
Leave headphones at home for group runs
This might just be a pet peeve of mine, but I don’t understand why people come to a group run and then just put their headphones on the entire time and don’t talk to anyone. I tend to have things that make no sense to me but others see no issue with, so this could be another one of those things. To me, the whole point of running with other people is to be in conversation with someone about something – anything. If I wanted to listen to something I would just run alone. Call me crazy, but I say leave the headphones at home if you are running with other people.
Run naked
Streaking!!! Ok, so I’m not actually talking about actually running without clothes. I am however talking about running without any headphones. To some people, that may sound just as insane. If you have never done it, I recommend giving it a try. If you want to ease into it, invite a friend to go for a run and have the conversation take the place of the headphones – it also makes sure you don’t run too fast 😉 If you are anything like me, it’s not often that are you are alone with nothing but your own thoughts. It can be incredibly helpful in processing your thoughts or emotions, and can quickly tap into your spiritual side. That’s a blog for another day though…