Music for Marathons

I’ve taken about two weeks off from blogging, and I took 9 days off from running after the marathon.  It was hard not to hit the pavement immediately after the marathon, but I figured I should take at least a week off.  It ended up being 9 days because I had jury duty that lasted two days for a criminal trial.

The thing about running a marathon is that the minute I finish, I’m so full of happy endorphins that I want to get right back to the training and high mileage as soon as possible.  This inevitably leads to the post-marathon slump, which I’ll talk more about in a later post.  However, for now, I thought I’d talk a bit about my beloved ipod shuffle, since I’ve never run a marathon without it.

Earbuds and ponytail blowin’ in the wind.

Music has always profoundly affected me, so it goes without saying that I’m completely addicted to my ipod for long runs.  It is nothing short of a miracle that I did so many long training runs without it.

Currently, my running playlist is 4.8 hours long with 71 songs that I’m continually rotating in and out of the running playlist to keep things interesting. I don’t put the various tracks into any kind of order though I know that many runners do this. (There’s a great post on creating a playlist here). I like to keep my running playlist on the random setting to mix the play order up, and I’m also just too lazy to figure out song times and coordinate them with my expected splits.

Below are a few of my favorite new tracks.  They made the 26.2 miles of the Gettysburg Marathon just a bit easier. *Disclaimer:  I make no claim to having good taste in music.  I choose music that makes me feel good and run fast. Haters gonna hate.

Dance in the Graveyard by Delta Rae

All the Lovers by Kylie Minogue (complete with this super awkward and delightfully weird music video– whatever, don’t judge.  This song makes me go fast, and that’s all that matters.)

Speaking of embarrassing music preferences, I love this song: Party in the USA by Miley Cyrus

Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

Madness by Muse

Carry On by Fun.  This song worked really well for me once I had settled into a good steady pace.

Take on Me by ah-ha ( Go Nats!)

And because I’m a super nerd… Song of the Lonely Mountain performed by Neil Finn.

This was another song that worked really well once I had settled into a steady pace.

And of course, it wouldn’t have been right not to include something off of the Gettysburg Movie Soundtrack on this playlist…

Fife and Drum from the Gettysburg Movie Soundtrack:

I also had the main theme from the movie as well:

And obviously, I ran the last half mile with this on repeat because that’s how I end every marathon: