I’ve spent some time thinking about how to trick myself into perceiving running (especially running on a treadmill) as not such a boring activity. I used to listen to audiobooks and podcasts, but found listening to music to yield the most success. A few days ago I went through my music and picked out songs for running. What was different this time, though, was that this time I looked at the tempo of each song to match it up to how fast I wanted to run.

Everyone has a different pace (and a different frequency with which they move their feet when they run at different speeds) so there is no good formula, but I recommend playing various songs while running on a treadmill and finding the speed at which the song seems to be in sync with your run. You can use any of the (sub-)harmonics of the frequency (so a very slow song may still be appropriate, if you happen to move your feet twice as fast as the song’s tempo). You can then arrange your playlist according to how fast you want to run at the various stages of your run.

I also had great success picking the songs I really liked, or was motivated by, to appear at the beginning and the end of the playlist, for additional motivation. I also found that around two-thirds into the run, I’d be particularly demotivated (likely to stop), so I put some good songs around there, too.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 09:14 and is filed under lifehacks, paramathematics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.