Dancing my way through the run...

Lately my running partner and I have had a hard time getting our schedules to match up so I've been doing a lot more of my runs solo. And once you've gotten used to chit chatting your way through a run it gets hard to go it alone.   But I've found a new strategy - dancing through my run.

I read recently on my friend Kristi's blog that itunes records the beats per minute for a lot of songs.  I guess DJ's like to know that kinda stuff...anyhow...  she mentioned that you could use that in your run if you knew your steps per minute.  So I went outside and jogged down the street counting my steps per minute.  Since not all of my songs in itunes had their BPM recorded, I downloaded a free trial of some software that would count my beats.  It was free because it only did the first half of my music library - which was kinda stinky but hey - it's free!  So, knowing that my SPM was around 160 I found music between 155 and 170 BPM and put it in order of the beats on my ipod. So I can start out slower and increase to 170 by the end of my run.

And it's been great - when I'm feeling tired or bored or when I start to panic a little I remind myself that all I have to do it start dancing.  And it works every time.  There is something so satisfying as moving your feet to music - in having my feet hit the ground on every beat.  And as long as the music is good - I get moving.  I also tend to play air drums along the way too.  It also works great for speed work because you can have a regular or slower paced song followed by a faster song - and continue alternating so you just have to follow the music.  Which is good - because I seriously need to get faster. 



And from the movie that taught me to love dancing...I totally teared up while watching this.  I'm a sentimental boob.