Welcome

In the back of my mind I always enjoyed running, being fortunate to grow up around a beach I always found it so relaxing to start or end the day with a jog along the sand. No matter how complicated things seemed before going out there on my run, my mind always felt so much clearer when I returned. It was always like a mind and body cleanse.

Over the last few years, fortunately with my work I have been privileged enough to travel around the world and live in different cities after the world. Getting a bit older, a sedentary day job and new scenery was the catalyst to get me back into running. Starting at just a 15-20 minute run got me back into it, but moving to NYC around the time of heavy promotion for the 2007 marathon made me wonder. Is this something I could actually do? It sounded impossible to me...

After talking to a few people, some that had run it before, I decided that with about 12 months of gradual training that there was no reason why I wouldn't have a shot at running it. So my training began... just starting with a 15-20 minute run and adding on a few minutes every week.

Having grown up around many genres of electronic music, and already having a large collection I gravitated towards it when running with my iPod, but as those 20 minute runs turned into 45, 60, 90, 120 minute and beyond runs I noticed a particular style of music really kept me running, and wanted to keep me going rain or shine. I guess you would call it melodic/uplifting trance. You will find regular postings of this kind of music here.

Why Trance when running? After much consideration I think it is because most songs go for around the time it takes a lot of amatuer runners to do a mile or there about, I feel this helps with keeping sane on a long run. I once tried running to one of those EuroDance 'mega-medley' tracks which changed up the song every minute. Even though I was able to run well past 60 minutes at the time, after about 15 minutes I was completely exhausted. Don't get me wrong - I love that music, brings back so many teenage happy memories, but it's just not good running music in my opinion. I think a uptempo, continuous steady beat helps keep the tempo going. I also think minimal vocals don't get you distracted and keeps you conserving energy. This is just my personal opinion, I know music is extremely subjective. But this works for me.

So fast forward to late 2009 and I have run 2 marathons (NYC and London), I am still planning my next marathons, but I know the big one in the future is Comrades 2011 - the ultramarathon in South Africa.

I hope the music on this blog motivates you towards your goals, I also look forward to hearing about what gets you going running too.