Do you run in time to the music beat??

[Bazza1234]

I have never liked the music on the various podcasts - because the beat of the music feels far to slow for me. So I basically just programmed the intervals into Runkeeper and ran at my own pace without music. I tried "Stepping Stone" once and hated it for that reason as well -- but perhaps I can retry it??

Do others run at their own pace/BPM or do you run to the beat of the music??

[AncientMum Graduate]

Definitely the beat, can't help myself. Dread to think what would happen if I set out listening to something with 180bpm or more. They'd be scraping me off the road too exhausted to move after the first km

[Drummond45 Graduate]

Hi Bazza,

I do; I just commented on P1glet1's post here about it:

healthunlocked.com/couchto5...

I completely agree with you re the C25K music and found the pace veeerrrry slow for me. I wanted something to run in time to. The C25K+ podcasts work better for me in terms of timing/bpm, but I find the music itself a bit... inane. So that's why I'm playing about with my own music choices. It sometimes almost feels the music is dragging me along when I might otherwise stop.

I'm doing my first 5K race next weekend and I want something that will help my pacing and stop me running too fast too early on. I'm hoping running to a beat will work for that too. Hence getting nerdy about bpm!

[misswobble Graduate]

You can follow the beat but often it is too irregular, so you can do as laura does and count one,two, three, four and keep a steady rythm to your count which goes with your stride. Then you run a steady pace rather than speeding up and slowing down

You can run to the music if you want though as it is fun and intervals are good for us, so they say. Puff wheeze

There is a good track on one of the stepping stones podcasts and it's really easy to keep in time to. It's a bit electronic but I find its metronome rhythm really useful

[runningnearbeirut Graduate]

While I am fairly musical, I'm really not very coordinated and find it very hard to run to the beat. I suppose if it matched my cadence I might manage better. I prefer to listen to speech when I'm running because then I don't have the distraction of thinking about whether or not I'm running to the beat.

Stamina is faster than stepping stone, so you might get on (a bit) better with that. You'd probably find the speed podcast excruciating at the beginning and then enjoy what to most of us are the genuinely "fast" intervals!

[Matp Graduate]

I was working away from home and the hotel gym had a running coach. He made several changes to my running style - one was my cadence.

He changed my pace from 160 steps per minute to 180. To help me stick to it we downloaded a metronome app and I habitually listen to it now - even on my long runs. I do struggle to keep to it when I'm trying to increase my pace.