Matching Music to your Cadence - Consolidation Run 5

[Thorfinn]

I just finished my fifth consolidation run and it felt really good.

For the first consolidation run, I did the Wyndham Vale parkrun course. It was a grueling run mainly because of the rapid changes in elevation and me starting off too fast so that I was exhausted by the end. For the next 3 runs I used the 5k+ Stepping Stone podcast. In this, Laura gets you to run in time with some music starting at 150BPM and finishing at 160BPM. I found this really hard to do because my comfortable cadence is faster than that. But I liked the idea.

For this fifth run I simply used my own music and set Map my Run to 5k distance. During this run two tracks lined up with my cadence so I made a mental note of them. When I got home I used getsongbpm.com/ to look up the BPM of those songs and found others that I liked that had the same BPM. I was able to construct a playlist that contained songs that gradually increase in BPM and I'll use it for my next run. In theory this should start me off at a comfortable pace and speed me up as the run progresses. I'll let you know how it goes on my next run.

BTW I did 5k in 30:55 which is my fastest ever time and I felt I still had more in the tank. I'm pretty chuffed with that and looking forward to the next run. I will crack 5k in less than 30 min eventually.

[AgingMetalHead Graduate]

Well done on your run. I'm sure you'll break 30 minutes soon. It's a great feeling when you do.

Music is always a bit random for me. I've a running playlist but sometimes it's just a random album. Doesn't always work! Yesterday was meant to be my long and slow run of the week. Put on some very fast thrash metal, set off way too fast, especially in the heat, and gave up after 5km! Need to programme in a slower long run playlist I think.

[CBDB Graduate]

Nice!! Thanks for this. Music is also really important for me and I did something similar with Spotify playlists, and using GarageBand to find BPM.

There are also some apps that DJ music to your running beat, but they’re behind a paywall so haven’t tried them.

But big thanks for link and ideas. I’m on my first Consolidation run today.

[AppleB Graduate]

Great idea, thanks for the link. Have just graduated so will try the Stepping Stone with Laura before I make up my own playlists. Oh, and well done!

[Lula375 Graduate]

Love this! I will definitely give it a go, thank you. Congrats on your fab 5k PB!