I usually listen to musicals… but that doesn’t always work.
I’ve found that I can’t listen to Chicago (partially because you look silly running while trying to subtly do Fosse moves, but mostly because my heartrate shoots up).
I love to run to Nelly’s “Hot in herre” and “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor. If “Eye of the Tiger” comes on the radio I automatically change the channel otherwise. I normally don’t listen to Nelly but that song makes me want to run another 5 minutes.
This might sound kind of weird, but I have songs in my player that are a good tempo to run to, others that are good to do the elliptical to. The way I figure which ones will work is I have this program called Metrognome (I believe it’s free) and I play a song that I know is a good tempo, then tap the beats on the metronome and it tells me how many bpms the song is. Then I test other songs against that measure…it works well. I only have 128MB to work with, so I want to make sure I don’t waste space by putting a song on there that doesn’t work. That said, my current running songs are:
“Cruel” by Tori Amos (Live–I love this one because it’s long)
“Happiness is a Warm Gun” U2 version
“Mama Knew Love” Anthony Hamilton
“Rimshot” Erykah Badu
“Have a Talk with God” Stevie Wonder
“Sweet Dreams” Tori Amos
“Stuck in a Moment” U2
“Comin’ from where I’m From” Anthony Hamilton
“Taxi Ride” Tori Amos
“Glory of the 80s” Tori Amos
Yeah, I like Tori, so what? 
Hey you! we kinda said the same thing on the bpms. I’m going to try some of your tracks, they look great.
You people are going about this all the wrong way- what would make YOU run better? Obviously if you were being followed by a source of horror so nauseatingly foul it could reduce one to a gibbering wreck crying for mercy in minutes. In other words, Blackalicious! I particularly recommend the track “world keeps turning” for this pursuit.
You also say you run in time to the beat, eh? In that case, simply throw in a couple of britney spears tracks played at quadruple speed. This, combined with the above effects, should have you sprinting as if your very life depends on it, which of course, it will.
i listen to the radio when i run because i’m fickle and i don’t have any cassette tapes anymore (cd players don’t cut it)
(my apologies if these were already said)
“Who Are You” by The Who
“This is the New Shit” by Marilyn Manson
“Toxic” by Britney Spears
“Livinin on the Edge” by Aerosmith (which is fine until you get to the silence in the middle and the bass drum comes back in and you’re suddenly off tempo . . . it takes a few skips, but you can get back on)
i don’t know if anyone else would agree with this, but I find it ironic that “Run” by Pink Floyd does not make a good running song. Maybe i just have short legs, but it doesn’t work.
i’ve got eclectic music tastes . . . i personally like angry hardcore and pop/techno when i’m trying to push myself, and acoustic stuff (think John Mayer, Jason Mraz) when i need to slow myself down to prevent a cramp
“My Black Mama” (Son House)
“That’s the Way It Is” (Celine Dion)
“In the Evening” (Led Zeppelin)
“High Water Everywhere (part 1)” (Charley Patton)
“Tie Your Mother Down”(Queen)
“Illinois Blues” (Alvin ‘Youngblood’ Hart, original by Skip James)
This lasts me through warm-up, three miles and cool-down.