Podcasts: Podrunner & Podrunner: Intervals

This week's recommendation comes from Dave, and it's a two-fer! First up...



Podrunner is a podcast put together by DJ Steve Boyett. Each installment is an hour-long mix of what I would call club music -- driving, bouncy, trance-ish -- where all the tracks have the same number of beats per minute. This number, be it 159 or 137 or 170, is in the title of the mix.

If you're like me, the tempo of a song affects your running pace. What's cool about Podrunner is you can pick a mix that matches your pace goal for any given workout.

And, Dave says, when it's over, you know you've worked out for an hour. He used these mixes on the gym's elliptical, and they helped him not watch the clock. Bonus!

Now, what if you want to mix it up?

Maybe you want to start slow and ramp up your pace. Or run at pace intervals within the same workout, as though you were running hills. Or even start with a 20-minute mix and work up to a 70-minute mix over several weeks?



Podrunner: Intervals is for you. Mixed by DJ Beatsmith, and designed by fitness coach Jenny Hadfield, P:I offers three goal-based series to help you work up to a 5K run (or 45 minutes continuous running), an 8K run (or 62 minutes), and a 10K run (or 69 minutes). The website mentions half-marathons and marathons, too, but they've not done those mix series yet.

As mentioned in P:I's helpful, 4-minute introductory episode, each week's mix has a warm-up and cool-down; uses chimes to signal tempo changes; and is designed to be run three times (with rest days between) before moving to the next week's mix.

The theory is: if you follow a series program, you'll reach that distance (or time) goal in 10 weeks.

I plan to use these starting in September when our training begins in earnest. If I get some cloudy days before then, I'll start sooner!

I know several of you are training for an event. Do you use music to keep your feet moving? Does tempo affect your pace? Do you prefer something other than music, like audiobooks or talk radio?

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