Music vs spoken word?

[EmilyReads]

Just did my W2R1 and found it more tiring, but also felt shorter than week 1 runs (I feel like psychologically I prefer knowing there will be fewer running intervals, even if they are a bit longer!) I tried listening to spoken word (podcast) for the first time instead of music and I'm undecided whether it's helpful to keep my mind off the tiredness, or whether the best of the music would help. What do people listen to while doing their runs - any good recommendations for running music? My general listening tends towards acoustic/folky stuff which is rarely the right tempo!

[EmilyReads Graduate]

*beat of the music (grrrrr autocorrect!)

[Little-runner Graduate]

Hey EmilyReads, Firstly well done on completely week 1 and good luck with week 2!

I listen to podcasts and audio books a lot in the car...but not with running. I much prefer to run with music as I find the pace keeps me going. I tried a podcast once and I kept losing track with what was going on because I was thinking about my running too much. (Maybe when I'm much more experienced I'll go back to the spoken word, but for now, music works better for me).

For music, I've created my own playlist on Spotify, but there is already a playlist in the 'workout' section, under 'running' which you may like called 'Run Wild'. It's definitely got a more acoustic folky feel to it than most of the other running playlists which are dance or poppy chart music which I don't really like all that much! The pace is good too and not too slow.

🎧🎵🎶🏃🏼‍♀️

[EmilyReads Graduate in reply to Little-runner]

Ooo thank you I will check it out! Yeah, dance stuff is definitely not my jam

[Denovo]

South African songs, taiko drums and Strauss polkas all mixed up is my current list.

Intending to add in some of the more upbeat Celtic folk as well, e.g. Calan, Mabon, Lughnasa.

I've been walking in the company of Stephen Fry reading from his Mythos and love it. However, I thought it would be more frustrating to lose bits of narrative than bits of music when the C25K voice prompts come in. I definitely intend to experiment with audiobooks at some point though.

[Hidden in reply to Denovo]

I loved Mythos and short stories are good for zoning out problems

[UnfitNoMore Graduate]

Most of my podcasts are funny, and I can’t see laughing helping me to breathe well. As I haven’t been doing this alone my answer was neither, but running after injury alone yesterday it was music, and the time really did fly by.

[telford_mike Graduate]

I listen to the radio through BBC iplayer. It's a nice mix of chat and music - makes the time pass by.

[kriswhoruns Graduate]

I’ve been listening to cool kids European pop music (W1R1 was Christine and the Queens, todays W1R2 was Robyn) and I think that’s gonna work well for me. Oh, and obviously my beloved Eurovision 2018 playlist.