Running

It’s coming - soon. Just over a month to go. Yes, my first half-marathon is on 27 September. I will be participating in Run to the Beat, a circular route around Greenwich which starts and finishes at the 02 Arena. Under the strict tutelage of my girlfriend, who is actually an accomplished athlete, rather than a dilettante like me, I am in training for the big day. A sustained period of running around East London whilst plugged into my iPod Shuffle, has convinced me of what a transcendental activity this is. The happy invention of Sony’s smallest audio device must surely have revolutionised the experience of the sport for everybody.

First, a word about running itself. Its simplicity is appealing. No need for effete posing in Lycra to Cascada down your local modish gymnasium: with running, you just get up and go. Anyone who has read Haruki Murkami’s excellent memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running will be aware of the life-affirming, life-changing qualities he ascribes to the sport. Over time, running alters the shape of your body, and then it alters the shape of your mind. To get up in the morning and run thirteen miles is no small endeavour. The sport requires a level of discipline and toughness which is pleasing to nurture in oneself. Put simply, it feels good out there, pounding the city streets, clocking up mile after painful mile. Add music and it can be ecstatic.

Much has already been written about the influence of the iPod on our consumption of music (including iPod, Therefore I Am by GQ editor Dylan Jones), but its significance in sports psychology cannot be understated. One of the iPod’s many USPs is of course the shuffle function, where songs stored in the memory are played in a random order. Before a long run, I will upload a number of albums and individual tracks from my laptop that suit my mood. Shuffled, songs that I haven’t heard for many years will play at seemingly apposite times during the run. A particular piece of music might suit my current train of thought; it might energise me; or it might dignify a particularly drab section of the route. I will always remember Pet Shop Boys’ 1990 classic To Step Aside coming on as I powered past a particularly drab supermarket car park in Bermondsey. Physical exhaustion, coupled with the body’s natural release of endorphins, place one in an emotionally susceptible state. Neil Tennant intoning ‘I look at my short life and think / Of all the champagne that I drink’ seemed especially poignant on that day, and the song remains a favourite. In fact, listening to a piece of music while running can enhance ones enjoyment of it forever, or even induce pleasure where there was none before. The physical activity melds with the listening experience, to cut a fresh neural pathway insofar as a particular song is concerned. Trust me, there’s no experience quite like speeding down Deptford High Street while listening to Marc Almond’s Trevor Horn-produced gem of a single My Hand Over My Heart. Contrast can be everything. Grit and glitter indeed.

The death of the album has been much-mooted of late, and there is certainly something to be said for a panoply of diverse tracks on a run. Aside from those mentioned, I have playlisted Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Babyshambles, DJ Hell, The Rolling Stones, Coldplay, Little Boots, Bowie and a whole raft of dance music recently. However, I have also enjoyed metaphorically dusting off the LPs of my youth, and listening to them in full while running. Depeche Mode’s Black Celebration around Southwark Park, and Morrissey’s Vauxhall and I on the way up to Whitechapel are two recent examples. The runner is a strangely captive audience. With little else to do except feel tired and wish you could stop and lay down, you listen intently to every bar, engaging with the music more strongly than you might normally do. In fact, I can say that my training has done as much for my love of music as it has for my fitness.

So go on, grab your iPod and get running, and I’ll see you at the finishing line in Greenwich in September!