words, music, and running

Lately I’ve been talking a lot about running. Talking, writing, chatting, emailing, tweeting, and conversing about running. If you missed the memo, I’ve been running for the last few months. By my previous standards, which were not running ever, at all, except after my kids to prevent certain death, I’ve been running a lot. For the last month I’ve averaged over 20 miles a week, steadily increasing since the beginning of this year. My longest run to date has been seven miles, and I have an eight mile run planned for tomorrow morning. (EDIT: That eight mile run didn’t happen today. Sorry, Eminem. Stupid daylight saving time. It’ll happen another time.) If you’re reading this on my site, look to the right and you should see a dailymile widget showing my latest run. Click through and you can see my recent running history. If you run or do any kind of regular exercise, I highly recommend dailymile, by the way.

But this post isn’t really about running. Well, not entirely, anyway. It’s about what I listen to while I run, and other times.

In running, as in most things, people tend to fall into camps. Factions. People like to take sides. I’m sure there are more of these groups than I even know about. These aren’t necessarily rival camps, but they are distinct groups, with different points of view on various issues.

One divide is between barefoot/minimalist runners and the traditional running shoe crowd. In fact, this can be even further divided. Diehard barefooters would claim a camp unto themselves, and would likely want nothing to do with the minimalist footwear folk. I straddle the line between barefoot and minimalist running. I may eventually go fully one way or the other, but for now I do both, depending on a variety of factors. Most of my miles to this point (roughly 230 of them) have been in Vibram Fivefingers, with about 30 miles run completely barefoot. I fully believe traditional running shoes don’t do much to prevent injury or improve performance, and aren’t really necessary. But I’m already going deeper into this than I meant to here. The point is, I’m on one side of this debate, and there are a great many more on the other.

Another fairly sharp divide is between runners who listen to music when they run, and those who don’t. I don’t. Lots of people do. While I know I’m in a clear and distinct minority when it comes to barefoot running, I’m not sure about this one. I think this split is closer to even, but I’d wager more folks listen to music when they run than don’t, based on what I’ve seen and heard. Some of my reasons for not listening to music while I run are similar to the reasons I don’t usually wear my iPod when I walk on city streets, don’t listen to music while I work, and why I ALMOST NEVER text while driving. It’s distracting. For someone who’s spent his life making and studying music, the amount of time I spend listening to it is fairly small compared to many. The degree to which I’ve devoted my life to music is in part the REASON I don’t listen to it that often. For me, music is immersive. I can’t ignore music while I focus on something else. If it’s on, I’m listening to it. Really listening. If there were music playing while I was writing now, I’d be all kinds of distracted, and would most likely either stop writing or turn off the music. The same applies when I run. It could be cool to have a soundtrack while running. But it would take me out of the moment, and away from the experience of what’s going on. There’s a safety factor here, especially since I run mostly on the streets of Los Angeles, but it’s not entirely about safety. Part of it is about focus.

Running for me, a bit like music, is a fully engaged activity. In part because I run barefoot (or almost), the sound of my footfalls matters to me. The quieter they are, the more correct my form. If my feet are slapping the pavement, something is wrong. But beyond that, I want to hear the world around me. Wind in the trees, birds, creatures of the world, other people, cars. These things are all part of the experience of running. If I were running on a treadmill (which, by the way, I have yet to do since I started running regularly), I would very likely listen to something. But out in the world, I want to hear myself, and the world.

I said this post isn’t about running, and it’s really not. I want to tell you about what I listen to when I DO listen to something besides the noises going on around me. The fact is, most of the time, what I listen to isn’t music. It’s words. Spoken words. More specifically, radio shows and podcasts that are mostly speech.

My favorite podcast (actually a radio show on NPR which, like pretty much everything else I listen to, I can’t bother to structure my life around being available while it’s actually ON the radio so instead download and enjoy the podcast whenever the hell I like) is This American Life with Ira Glass. If you do not listen to This American Life, you are missing some of the best storytelling around. Not just on radio, but anywhere. For me to describe it doesn’t really do it justice, but it is a mix of fiction and journalism, art and real life, that to me is one of the best things going.

In a similar vein, but with a rather more scientific, existential bent, is Radiolab. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich do something similar to This American Life, in that they pick a theme for each show and tell stories around that theme. But theirs are generally focused on science. What is time? What is music, and how does it relate to language? What does it mean to be self-aware? What’s the difference between humans and animals? Cool stuff, very well done, great show.

More recently, at the suggestion of Will at betheboy.com, I’ve been listening to The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling. This is basically a traditional talk radio format, with a comedy writer for  a host and a fairly liberal bent. It’s three hours long, and while not every minute of every show is amazing, there are some really wonderful moments. I have to say, I muse on the title now and then. Is it The Best Show of those currently on WFMU, or is it actually The Best Show of any available, and simply happens to be on WFMU? Perhaps we’ll never know.

Another regular download for me is Dan Savage’s Savage Love Cast. I first became aware of Dan Savage through his occasional appearances on This American Life. He’s a gay sex advice columnist based in Seattle. To be clear, he’s gay and gives sex advice. The advice itself isn’t necessarily gay, nor is the sex about which the advice is given. Savage Love is his sex advice column, and the Savage Lovecast is the audio version that column. He’s candid, direct, uncensored, and often bitchy, and I find him hilarious. Your mileage may vary.

So here I’ve said most of what I wanted to say, and in the end I wrote more about running than I did about the topic I claimed this post was about. That’s actually rather typical of my life lately. I start off talking about work, family, music, whatever, and end up going on about running. I hope this means I’ve found something I truly enjoy, which, for a change, is unequivocally good for me. Hopefully me going on about it doesn’t drive everyone around me crazy.

So, runner or not, what are you listening to?

Tagged as: Radiolab, Savage Love, The Best Show on WFMU, This American Life