I completed my third half marathon of 2010 and of my life! I am so excited to post my recap  — next week. I mean, it seems a little soon to post a race recap for a race I haven’t even washed my hair from yet. Also, I am waiting for the official race photos. As you might know, there is little I like more than staring at good pictures of myself for hours on end. So, we wait.
But while I am being selfish and making you all wait a week for a post full of pictures of myself, I won’t leave you totally hanging. Without giving too much away about my race, I will tell you that my music pushed me. It motivated me; it started me off strong; it gave me a happy miles 4, 5 and 6 (especially 5!); it got me through a great deal of pain; it helped me finish strong.
This was, without a doubt, the best race playlist I ever created. Up until recently, my running music had been feeling stale. I’d been using the same songs for months and I needed a change. Thanks to some really great friends, Core Fusion classes and a wedding, I was able make a playlist comprised almost entirely of songs I had never used in a race before. The freshness and awesomeness of the songs was exactly what I needed. This playlist is so good that I haven’t been able to stop listening to it — even after spending ALL of last week tweaking the order and songs.
DIVA HALF MARATHON TOTALLY AWESOME PLAYLIST, YOU GUYS!
Not to bore you, because this might excite no one but myself, but I’d like to describe some highlights from the list the entire list. Learning to Fly, first of all, is the perfect first song for a race. It isn’t too fast, it is extremely inspiring and the very first line is “Well I started out down a dirty road. I started out, all alone.” AMAZING. Following that up with 1901 was an excellent choice as well.
When the Day Met The Night – my favorite line of any song ever of all time is quite possibly “Well he was just hanging around then he fell in love and he didn’t know how but he couldn’t get out.” Try running to this song without shouting that line out loud. Just try.
Black and Gold, just awesome. It kind of surprises me every time I hear it because it is just so good. Hard to Concentrate is another one like When the Day Met The Night, it just kind of fills me with hope that someone might love me that much one day. Beggin’ – try to run to that one and NOT do a little head dance while running. Just try. And Home — my favorite song right now, period. Lifts me up when I run and when I don’t run and when I remember it exists as an example of perfection in music. And the chorus is perfect for running singing. Same goes for I Wish That I Could See You Soon. Whenever the girl goes “do you” in response to the guy, I can’t help but shout along with her. Another great one to sing along with is Breakin’ the Chains of Love.
Sunlight, Animal and Trees are powerful songs that are fun to sing along with — or, in my case during the race, mouth along with. Hard. All The Girls and F**k You are LIKE PARTIES IN MY EARS! Fun, exclusive parties that make me more awesome than everyone else.
Cardio 6 is this techno-y song from Core Fusion Cardio that I had to practically climb mountains and beat up people and cry and scream and beg and jump through mud and walk over fire to get into my possession. I finally got my hands on it but no one knows the real name of this song, not even Shazam and VCast Song ID. If you’d like a copy, let me know and I will email the file to you.
Riverside (Let’s Go) has funny lyrics, like this one: Me plus you that equals better equations. We must do subtraction of your clothes.  You can’t help but laugh, even if you are in your final miles of a half marathon and your knees are in so much pain you feel like you might quit. Also, it an awesome techno beat. Other great songs from Core Fusion Cardio include DJ Got Us Fallin In Love Again, Move For Me, It’s All Good and, especially, Can You Feel It. ACTUALLY — SUPER ESPECIALLY DYNAMITE. I love that song so much. How can one song be THIS MUCH FUN?! Sexy Bitch might be a CF Cardio song too. Not sure. Either way — love them all.
Breathe Me, Shooting Stars and Remind Me are all great to run and zone out to because you can just get lost in your thoughts. Those songs, along with Black and Gold, are all from my favorite Core Fusion Yoga class.
And what is a race without mashups? I’m in love with my choices for this race: Juicy Dollars (so good), Pon De Foley (thanks LBD!), Mr. Boom Boom Jones (needed to get my Counting Crows in), United State of Pop 2009 (so. much. FUN.) and Absolutely Tik Tok (which I don’t even remember hearing).
Paper Planes is another one that always shocks me by how good it is, and Son’s Gonna Rise is the perfect song for your last mile — the lyric is also my mantra on my RoadID — In a mile you’ll be feeling fine. Although to fit it on my RoadID I had to revise it to read: INAMILEYOULLBEFEELINFINE. Amazing to hear this when you are struggling towards the end. Just repeat that to yourself — in a mile you’ll be feeling fine. Of course, I loved hearing The Final Countdown during my last mile because, yes it was my final countdown, but also because I got images of GOB (from Arrested Development) in my head doing his ridiculous openings to his magic shows. The Final Countdown is his theme song. And it is a great song to push you to the end.
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I always time my race playlists perfectly somehow so that no matter what time I finish and whether or not I PRd or had my slowest race, I ALWAYS finish the race during the last song on my playlist. Don’t ask me how I have this strange and useless talent, but I do. So as soon as I heard my running staple, which I tacked on at the last minute, Say Hey (I Love You), and also saw the finish line, it was just so fitting. I do have to note that I enjoyed the songs during the first 6 miles much more than the rest because once I start feeling pain, I stop noticing what song is playing until it is midway through — if I even notice it at all. That said, the songs during the last couple of miles, where I forced myself to push through the pain and speed up to finish strong really helped. More on that next week during my race recap.
I learned the majority of these new songs from my brother’s wedding CD (all tracks on album Matthew & Mallory), Rachel, Bess, Core Fusion Yoga, Core Fusion Cardio and Andrea from exhale Boston. I love finding new running songs — which brings me to my next point.
Last week I received an email from a reader named Brian. The subject of the email was “This is awesome”, so immediately I knew I would either be reading something great about my abilities as a blogger, or spam. It was the former, although the latter might not have been so bad because I get some pretty funny spam sometimes. Like this one: This post is so amazing, I almost spontaneously conceived a child just from reading it. Just incredible.
Alas, Brian was not spam. He is just a guy training for the NYC Marathon this coming November who came across my blog and really liked the idea of my Running Songs page — but he had the idea to take it one step further:
Your running songs section is an awesome idea, and I was wondering if you had space for anyone else to add their favorite running songs? Everyone’s got their favorites, and I feel like we could create one kick-butt list.
UH YEAH! Love this idea!
SHARE YOUR RUNNING MUSIC ON DSB
So, I am putting out a call to all of  you to share your favorite running songs with me. I will create a separate page for readers’ running songs suggestion (and keep my own Running Songs page for myself). If you have a blog, I will link your list back to you.
So here’s how this will work. Comment here or email me a list of your favorite running songs. Feel free to include any other details you think is important — like, “good songs for hills” or “fast beats” or “dirty, explicit, vulgar songs that simultaneously shame and amuse me.” Or no details at all. Whatever you want! Once I get some submissions, I will add to the Readers’ Running Songs page, and we can all learn new workout music and waste spend even more money on iTunes.
