Fanfare for the Common Runner

I rarely leave home without it

For most of my 16 years as a runner (including the three years I ran in high school before a twenty year hiatus from this avocation) I've run to nothing other than the sound of the flip-flap of my feet as they repeatedly hit the pavement and whatever background noise the road I was running on at the time provided – dogs barking, cows mooing and cars going . A few years ago, however, I bought an iPod nano with the intent of experimenting of running to a soundtrack now and again. My son, who runs cross and track for UW-Superior, has carried an iPod on his training runs for some time now and that practice alone persuaded me to give it a whirl.

Note how many folks are wearing earbuds

My first run with the thing was an incredibly frustrating experience. I don't remember what playlist I had put together but try as I might to put my earbuds deep enough into my ears invariably one or the other would pop out after a few blocks of running. Of course, this meant stopping briefly – or at the very least, slowing – in order to put the things back in. After a couple of runs I was ready to give up on the things figuring my ears were either too big or too small for this kind of running cool.

These help me get my groove on

But then while paging through a running catalog I saw an add for a pair of earbuds that came with soft plastic tips at the end that promised to grip my ear canal firmly. It was on the top of my Christmas list that year and come early January I was ready to try it again. Fast forward a few years later and there are very few times I go out the door without being plugged in. I have a number of playlists that I access according to my mood and feeling at the start of my run. Sometimes it's a list of favorite movie soundtracks, sometimes it's contemporary worship music, but it all works to put a little more giddyup into my step along the way.

One more reason to love my morning runs

After several months of listening to the same kind of music over and over, however, I noticed the perceptible drop in inspiration that I was drawing from these scores. About that time a friend of mind put me on to Librivox, a website where a lot of literary classics that are now in the public domain can be downloaded as podcasts to my iPod. These days, more often than not, I'm listening to a narration as I head out the door rather than a musical score. Since my friend put me on to this I have listened to The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (now one of my new favorite books), The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (L. Frank Baum), Journey to the Center of the Earth (Jules Verne) and currently, The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground another one by Cooper. Since they're in the public domain I can download podcasts for free and then simply delete them when I'm finished. Granted some of the narrators – especially the French Canadian ones – are difficult to follow at times but the price is right. And what's great is I can now combine two of my passions, reading and running, into one great activity. It's such a wonderful world!

I don't look at all like him but I sure felt like I was him

Last Friday, however, I ran in our community's annual running event, Chetek's Fishy Four, and knew before the race that I required something a little bit more high octane than a placid narration of a story set during the Revolutionary War (but given that it was Libertyfest it certainly would have fit). So I pulled up my favorite playlist these days – one I call “Cowboys and Superheroes” - and meant to have it cued up by the time the race started. But I got talking with the dad of one of my Cross Country kids and before I knew it the race was on. The thing about the Fishy Four is that the start is very congested as a 1,000 runners and walkers are trying to get on track on narrow Lakeview Drive and unless you're up by the rabbits it means a lot of zig-zagging as you look for open road until it finally thins out around the Baptist campgrounds. Now add to it that I was trying to cue up my playlist while watching where I was going and it was the equivalent of texting and driving – it was an accident ready to happen. So after about 20 seconds I pulled over, brought up the playlist and pushed play and just like that I was in “go”-mode as the sound of the Captain America march blared in my ears.

Cap leading the way

The combination of that triumphant song and the view of all those runners all around me and suddenly I felt like I was Captain America who had just strapped on his shield and was going into battle. Honestly, my heart skipped to the drama that the combination of what I was seeing and what I was hearing as several ounces of adrenaline were released into my bloodstream. Okay, I was running at a very pedestrian 9:30 pace but in my mind I felt like I was flying.

You have to be safe with those things. You can't get so lost in the music – or the words – that you forget that you are slow-moving traffic out on the autobahn. But if you keep your wits about you, it's the only way I know how to run these days. I watched Mel Gibson's The Patriot the other night and shortly afterward downloaded the main theme song from Amazon (John Williams is the man!) Soon I'll be running down a road near me propelled by the music of The Colonial Cause and thinking of that wonderful moment in the climatic battle when Gibson's character, Col. Benjamin Martin, leads his men waving the flag in slow mo while running toward the fight. It's the stuff of making a normal run feel like you're inside an epic one.