Africa’s not bad… i mean… everyone has SOMETHING on that playlist that they don’t want getting out… (What is Love… Howard Jones…)
I need a better earphone… any recommendations?? my right ear must sweat because the damn thing keeps poppin out all of the time…
Yeah that old guy reading Elmore Leonard cracks me up… how can he stay level… the page would just bounce to me…
Music or tv while working out is the only way to go, in my opinion. I walk with my iPod, or I cycle at home watching tv. I meant to do only 30 minutes on the bike this afternoon, but I got interested in something on tv so I just kept going - that tells you all you need to know, eh? 
I’m a firm believer that if you can READ while running on the treadmill you aren’t running hard enough. Period.
Eliptical and bikes? I can see how someone could read on those but not the treadmill. Not if you are actually running even semi-fast.
rummage around itunes or online for a 24 pod series about Smithsonian Folkways music… it is about Moe Asche and Folkways Music, and all the odd music and verbal records he put out in the 50s and 60s, and into the 70s. Fantastic. Instead of little clips they play the whole tune he is talking about. It made me decide to start buying Folkways albums in download =)
Kickstart My Heart by Motley Crue has gotten me through more workouts than I care to admit.
I have a Sansa Clip that I use during workouts. Alice Cooper is my workout partner: I can’t get into it without listening to him. I tried working out with my iPod touch, but it kept changing songs on me. I’ll need an armband before I try that again.
I prefer podcasts. Music is ok, but when I listen to talk, the time goes faster.
I don’t listen to music in the gym. The weight room at my gym has a blaring radio, and it’s loud enough i’d really have to crank the volume up on my earphones to drown it out. The radio station they play is usually either a local top-40 type of station, or one that plays 60s-80s disco and dance stuff.
I do listen to music when i run on the streets. My old MP3 player died a while back, and i got myself a Sansa Clip+, which is awesome. It’s incredibly small and light, has really good sound for such a small device (even with the standard earbuds), and the clip latches onto my running shorts perfectly.
Sometimes i listen to random music, and at other times i’ll pick an album. Recently, i’ve been catching up on NPR’s Car Talk during my runs. The 53-minute show is perfect. My run takes about 37-38 minutes, and i then listen to the last 15 minutes while i walk around cooling down. And those guys crack me up.
I started running on the streets and have never listened to anything except the sounds around me, my footfalls, and my breathing. Running is one of the few times during my day that I can unplug and just let my mind wander.
During the winter when I run in the gym, I’ve found that even without headphones, I can block out the abysmal satellite radio station they blare throughout the gym, and the TVs competing for my attention, and ignore all external stimuli.
Yes, when I bike or run outside (usually bike, as running is evil), I just like to get some fresh air, listen to the sounds of whatever is around me, and let my mind do its own thing. No music, just me, my bike and outside.
Bah, this is where we disagree, and is 98% of the reason I hate gyms. I hate having to leave my real bike inside my apt, while I drive down to some sterile, lifeless building and ride a fake bike, hearing four TVs set to three different channels, listening to the sounds of mechanical treadmills. It’s just so unnatural and boring. I can’t just zone out and ride at the gym, which is why I need music, or more often, I’m like the old geezers because I bring reading material (magazines and NOVELS!) to the gym.
I can run and bike (and swim-- but that’s the default) without music, but I find it easier to keep myself from spacing out and losing momentum if I at least have a song going in my mind to keep pace with. I usually make use of my iPod, but I make myself playlists of songs with a steady beat and enough energy to keep me interested. The other day, I was in the gym and was able to do 40+ minutes of cardio with no lack of energy partly because I had access to high energy music on my iPod-- without it, I have trouble getting past that first 20 minutes of near-ennui-inducing exercise. After those first 20 or so, I’m motivated, fully warmed up, and past any initial pain that made me count the moments until I go home.
Earbuds don’t work well for me, period, so I use sport earphones similar to these. They’re easy to find.
I started out listening to music on my ipod during workouts but eventually got sick of listening to the same music over and over. Now I mostly listen to audiobooks, which I get from the library. I do sometimes have a day when I’d rather listen to music. I absolutely cannot read on the elliptical, but do bring a book along if I plan to use the stationary bike.
I recently got a Droid phone (none of this iCrap for me). When I run, sometimes I listen to music I’ve stored on it, and sometimes I use the Pandora application to get a nice variety of songs.
I wouldn’t be the worst one, even if I did sing - there’s a woman who works out about the same time I do, and sings loud enough that I can sometimes hear her over my own headphones.
I usually just dance in my head.
I’ve never admitted this to anyone else: when I run I love to listen to the worst, most saccharine, europop out there. Whenever I start to lag I love ABBA, or Me & My, or, god help me, Toybox; it’s like a shot of glucose directly into the muscles. The rest of the time I run I listen to Metal! Glorious Metal!
I use the cheapest sound isolating earbuds I can find, and they usually work OK - the ones with the silicone dealies. Sometimes they fill up with water and stop working, but once they dry out they are fine. In any case, because they are cheap, I just throw them out and buy new ones when they stop sticking in my ears.
I don’t know what spm is, but The Prodigy (specifically “Breathe” and “Smack My Bitch Up”) can take me all the way through a burn on a run or the elliptical. Try one of those when you feel like you just can’t keep going.
Don’t tell anyone, but “Le Disko” by Shiny Toy Guns is a staple of my workout mix.
I love using the iPod at the gym. I pick music that has a really solid beat and I keep up with it while pounding on the treadmill. It’d be awful without the music.
Some folks like using audiobooks etc. for that, but that doesn’t work for me.
I usually fall into a rut where I listen to the same long album for all of my runs.
I have probably heard the entirety of various versions of The Who’s “Tommy” hundreds of times. Likewise “Jesus Christ Superstar”
It turns out that these shows are just long enough to cover 9 or 10 miles, so I judge where I am by what song is playing.
“Pinball Wizard” is playing? Getting close to the six mile mark.
Yesterday I was running at the Y and had to forgo any kind of music. Not only were there two dozen guys playing basketball, but they had a “bouncy castle” set up at the other end of the court with about a thousand screaming kids jumping up and down (the running track is in the basketball gym).
I figured I’d go deaf if I turned up the tunes enough to drown that all out.
Yeah, mine too.
And “Closer” by NiN.
One of my favorite running tunes: “Tragedy,” The Bee Gees.
You can have my iPod when you pry it off my cold, dead, but freshly svelte body. 