"Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired in the morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired.”

- George S. Patton, U.S. Army General, 1912 Olympian

Friday, February 5, 2010

Podrunner: a relentless robotic musical running partner

Meet DJ Steve.

DJ Steve has carried me through more difficult runs than he knows over the last few months. If you're unfamiliar with DJ Steve's mixes, you can find them HERE or HERE or on itunes. And they're FREE. Whatever your pace, he's got a mix for you. I've tried a number of different mixes and have currently have three locked and loaded.

These mixes are great for me. They're approximately an hour long each and they maintain the same beat pace throughout. This is extremely helpful if I'm focusing (of having difficulty focusing) on a pace through part or all of a run. Some are a little boring and others have a few minutes here and there that I skip over but there's no way to tell in advance. It's more trial and error than anything else. If you don't like how a particular mix is sounding in the first 5, 10, or 20 minutes, just skip forward, maybe there's something there. Here?s what I currently have downloaded:

175bpm - Beattitude - I've had this mix loaded since last fall. It's my fallback mix. If I need a pick-me-up or if I find my pace wandering all over the place, I'll switch to this mix and go for a while. I skip over about 5 minutes in the middle and never listen to the last 5 minutes or so, but the other 45 minutes are great.

173bpm - Among the Titans - This is DJ Steve's most recent mix and I haven't gotten all the way through it yet. The first 15 minutes are a little dull, but by the 25-minute mark you?re ready to run through a wall.

173bpm - Pococurante - I started using this mix two weeks ago because I needed something slightly less intense than the 175bpm Beattitude mix. This becomes more of a warm-up mix, and I anticipate using something like this for the first 6-7 miles of the actual marathon. I'm amazed at the difference between 173bpm and 175bpm. 173bpm is pretty comfortable and doesn?t seem to take too much effort. 175bpm is right at the threshold of what I can do though and works me pretty well.

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