01-27-10: Will You Stay Awhile, Until The Feeling's Gone

Choosing an appropriate album for a run is a painstaking task. My iPod is inundated with donated/pirated music, a fair chunk of it stuff I’ve never listened to before. But picking something new is a risky decision, so I usually opt for the familiar stuff. Today, I quickly scrolled through my iPod until I landed on “Scars” from Basement Jaxx. It was a hasty, lazy pick, as I had listened to it yesterday, but I needed something reliable to boost me.

The weather was in my favor, another balmy, 70-something degree winter day. But I couldn’t seem to get things started. I can only describe it as my body refusing to charge. Ten minutes in and the run became a perfunctory activity, another banal, absent-minded ritual like making the bed or putting out the trash. It felt like I was glossing over the run or drifting through it. I envisioned a sweat-soaked shirt as the only evidence of a run ever taking place. I figured it's been this recent day-to-day malaise, sucking the soul from enjoyable things

It’s true, not every time is special. But still, even ostensibly boring runs can have their moments. I mean, where was the motivation for me to continue? I thought my choice of music might be responsible, too recently ingrained for me to pay attention to. Still, it wasn’t like the time I put on “Astralweeks” during a run in DC.*1 At least this was a congruous choice.

Back in the day, when running was still a novelty and hadn’t managed to charm me, running for more than five minutes at a time was difficult. I can honestly say that it was the music that initially pushed me forward. There was the day I nearly maxed out on a treadmill, having reached a moderate speed for roughly 25 minutes. When I thought I was completely drained, Vitalic’s “Newman” burst through my headphones. The song pushed me for an additional ten minutes.

I must’ve been patient enough today, because the moment came when “Twerk” started to play. The song is quintessential Basement Jaxx, a furious track that will either make you dance or induce a seizure. And when it came on, I couldn’t distinguish between the pulse of the song and my body. That—the stride and song in tandem—is my raison d’être. I was anxiously awaiting it, and yet it still surprised me.

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*1 About ten seconds into the album I knew I had made a bad choice, yet I stubbornly refused to switch music until it ended. I know, dumb.