Exercise Muzak

I need your help!  I’ve recently taken up running as a hobby…I have to pause for a moment to acknowledge how foreign that phrase sounds, even 12 weeks into this thing.  I have never, EVER been a runner; in fact it would be safe to say that I HATED to run.  Up until some friends persuaded me to try it, I thought the only good reason to run was if you were running away from something.  Preferably something trying to kill you.  Or eat you.  But other than that?   Psh, forget it.  I preferred lower impact sports, like writing the monthly check for the gym membership I didn’t use, or eating fried chicken  depending on the day of the week.  Alas, I have joined the running masses (or is it the running few?) and incidentally completed my first 5k race this past weekend.  Finishing that race only made me want to run another one (please trust me when I say I know how truly demented that sounds…it’s an illness).

Here’s where I need your help.  I’m planning to run a much longer race this fall (somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 miles longer…shit, that number never ceases to make my stomach drop), and I’m going to need motivation!  Inspiration!  Something to pump! Me up!  So tell me what kind of music you think I should be listening to while I run.  I need something peppy, interesting, but also catchy enough that I can get a little bit lost in it.  I’ve not gone so far over the deep end that I actually enjoy the pain quite yet, and some days I need the musical equivalent of a frontal lobotomy while I run.  Even if you don’t exercise, what songs do you imagine might make good running songs?  Help a girl out, will ya?  If you send me something good AND I win the half marathon, I promise to include you in my thank you speech.  Or perhaps more likely, I’ll just give you kudos right here on One Shoe Off when I drag my sorry, wheezing self over the finish line hours after the other runners have already gone home.

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