Home » Wire » Articles » To iPod or not to iPod

To iPod or not to iPod


Nathan Shopay
October 17, 2007

That is the question.

“Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer slings and arrows of the little angry voice in your head questioning the choice to punish your body, Or to take arms against pain, and confront it without the distraction of an over played power ballad. To run is to hurt, but to iPod is to escape.”

To say that many people run with music would be a bit of an understatement. It’s a global exercise phenomenon and has been for a while now. Not wanting to bore you with the evolution of mobile tunes, I’ll skip past the boom box on wheels and cassette player armband era, and go straight to the MP3 player, which reared its musically compressed head in 1999. I purchased one from Nike that could hold a whopping 20 plus songs and decided my 4-year hiatus from running was over. This was just the incentive I needed. A few years later I upgraded to the iPod mini, and life was grand…for a while. With its 1000 song capacity, powder blue casing, and my name etched into the back, I figured no workout would ever get the better of me. With the mere push of a button, I could disappear into a cloudy world of subjectively motivating melodies. As someone who is perpetually stuck on 80’s music, I have assembled a few examples that much like David Hasselhoff, just get better with age.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns6p_8wGPXY

If Asics sold a fluffy collared rocky inspired all weather jacket, I would buy it. If Nike made a white one-piece spandex Russian training suit, I wouldn’t. I don’t care how many pounds of pressure you can punch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8Jwvi8mAF4

Gone but not forgotten, Huey and his Newsies single handedly made “flux capacitor” a household name. Thanks to Christian Bale for explaining it so vividly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxxOyGK1pMk

That’s some timeless air keyboarding. I often think of this song when I am running down on the docks, after a hard day of sport fishin’. In all honesty, any Journey song is a good running song. Treat yourself this holiday season to Journey’s Greatest Hits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVf4_WglzWA

You don’t just wear a mullet, you rock a mullet, and if you need a theme song for your film, call up John Parr, he’s been waiting 22 years for another hit.

If you think I’m kidding about running with these songs, sadly I am not, and I didn’t even touch on 80’s songs that have been remade with a techno kick. That’s my secret stuff! Given the right day I’ll go sub 4 with a quality lineup, sure it may be in the 1200, but who’s counting.

I have three problems with iPod running. First, I have become dependant upon the device and at times will refuse to run without my tunes or shorten my distance when I forget it or the battery dies. Second, as of late I realized the tendency for my form to change depending on how well the armband was fitting that day. Can you say shoulder pain? Third, my cadence was dictated by the music. Often times I would fall way back from the general 180 steps per minute I try and hit and I am way to lazy to chase down music that fits that standard.

When I race, I choose loud and fast, but for the real runners, sadly they are not allowed to compete with headphones. This is due to the fact that it’s like flaxseed oil for the brain, a definite advantage. Who really wants to go head to head with the guy listening to Tony Robbins? Forget training, just will yourself to victory. “You’re fast, you have nice calves, and everybody likes you” Now say it out loud 10 times.

It’s only a matter of time before iphone and Garmin come together to make a GPS/heart rate monitor with wireless headphones that will also be a 10,000 song Mp3/Video player and Blackberry. Hmmm, ok I would buy this. For now, I am going to upgrade to the iPod Shuffle and eliminate my shoulder/running form issue.

It’s not too late to bring the many timeless sounds of the 80’s into your life. Live the dream; drive a Trans Am, (preferably with an airbrushed firebird on the hood) put on some leg warmers and download a few of these songs into your iPod. (I promise I have legally acquired all of mine) If your times don’t improve, your trivial pursuit 80’s edition knowledge will, and you may grow an awesome mullet in process, quicker than you can say “ Sometimes there are a few things that may be rotten in Denmark on any given day.”

As a huge fan of music I would need to write a book to cover all the songs out there that I like to run to, each person out there could most likely do the same. This is just a little reminder. Never forget the glory of the 80’s!

“The rest is silence” Act V, Hamlet, scene ii

- Nate

Post a Comment

Enter Your Name

or Login Here
Please enter this code to post comment. Login to skip Captcha.
captcha img
#12
Kevin Durkin   November 1, 2007 at 9:48pm
im a serious runner and can't imagine training without my ipod shuffle....head phones used to drive me nuts but the thing is the size of a quarter for god's sake...i would never race with one, nor do a speed workout, but long runs, couldnt deal without it....
reply  
#11
Biff Minion   October 19, 2007 at 1:10pm
I use ipods and have tony robbins on there if i get a cramp or something happens in a long distance run and it takes 2 hours to walk back to my starting ground.
reply  
#10
Auburn Staples   October 19, 2007 at 4:32am
I can't stand it when people run with headphones. Listening to my body and nature is one of the perks of running, so why would I want to blast music in my ears? I don't want to have to rely on music to motivate me. Not to mention it's annoying as hell when every person I see running has an mp3 player so I scare the crap out of them when I run by and then you can't even speak to them because they're oblivious to the world. I could go on, but I won't.
reply  
#9
Chris Naimoli   October 18, 2007 at 4:02pm
I met Ivan Drago Saturday, October 13th. Being from Philly, it was the greatest day of my life. And now he is part of FloTrack!!!
reply  
#8
Dean Rugh   October 18, 2007 at 8:00am
Oh, but I'm an 80's fiend as well. Van Halen, Van Hagar (although I think they were really the 90's), White Lion, Bonham, Howard Jones... I've got all the cassette tapes.
reply  
#7
Dean Rugh   October 18, 2007 at 7:57am
Training foul... I agree. In college we had a girl on the team that couldn't hear the ambulance screaming down the street and she got "bumped" by a car slowing down to rubberneck. By "bumped", I mean it was just hard enough to knock her down and bruise her ego for not paying attention.
Treadmill... It's ok then I suppose.
reply  
#6
espete01   October 17, 2007 at 5:03pm
Makes me want to borrow my kid's ipod and (re)grow a mullet.
reply  
#5
Rebeccadj_x   October 17, 2007 at 4:57pm
i love steve perry.
reply  
#4
Brett Heimstead   October 17, 2007 at 1:35pm
i love the 80's techno mixes... anybody got any good ones? One Night in Bangkok by the Vinyl Shakers is pretty good... great article, always ends up making me smile, and also has some good content.
reply  
#3
Jeff Abbott   October 17, 2007 at 9:54am
Flaxseed oil for the brain. Nice touch. I use my iPod shuffle when running on the treadmill. It is so easy to cut workout then, you just have to jump off. I will have to try the 80s music. Of course when Rocky theme comes on, I might have to move over to a stair climb and envision it is the Philly Art Museum.
reply  
#2
Notforrealrunners   October 17, 2007 at 9:27am
training foul
reply  
#1
Cara Hawkins   October 17, 2007 at 9:19am
I got into running music, and will do it sometimes for a long run. I have realized that I tend to listen to the music rather then my body so I have stopped running with it for now (plus it is CC season who needs music when you are running with a bunch of girls. I do believe we ended up singing Rocky Top throughout most of yesterday's run).
reply  

No Tags Yet.


Rate this Article

0/5 (0 votes cast)