With the holidays, finishing up my training and preparations for the Walt Disney World Marathon trip, going to Walt Disney World for a week, reporting about that trip and the races along with running and reporting on racing the Surf City USA Half Marathon, it’s been a while since I wrote about some of the songs on my running playlist. With my gym workout yesterday, I finally feel like I’m back at it and working towards my next running related goal…a 2 hour, 30 minute half marathon. It felt really good to be back to pushing myself again. The week before the Surf City USA Half Marathon I had to shut down my training to recover from an upper respiratory infection. Then, I ran the Surf City USA Half Marathon and shut my training down completely for the entire next week. All of that proved to be good for me in that I’m no longer dealing with that lingering cough! So, last week, I got in 3 run/walks during the week. However, none of them were entirely challenging. It was just to get back to training…and to have fun putting in some miles with a friend and my wife. So, yesterday’s gym workout represented the first opportunity I had to go at it like normal in several weeks. Towards the end of last year, I slacked off on gym workouts. That needs to stop immediately. It felt good to lift weights again and to tackle the elliptical machine. I’m a little bit sore today, but nothing too bad. My goal going forward is 1 or 2 gym workouts and 3 runs per week. Can’t wait to see what that yields!

At the gym yesterday, I got to thinking about this song. The Boys are Back is a fun song whether you’re running or on the elliptical machine. It’s a song that keeps the tempo high enough to power you through the entire song! I must admit that this song is buried deep in my half marathon playlist. I put it there as one of my songs to help out when the miles seem difficult. It’s a great reminder…this boy is back…get that energy up again…I can do it! These are some of the thoughts I have while listening to this song as I’m running in those later miles. As a distance runner, we all have those miles where we question why we are doing this to ourselves. This song distracts from those thoughts. Another reason I like this song is where it brings up finding the fun of being a kid…where you solve the mystery, fight the battle, save the girl…when you’re a super hero. I like the visuals it gives me as I’m battling those hard miles. This song is also on my gym playlist for while I’m on the elliptical machine. It can be boring to be on those cardio machines and going nowhere. So, we all need those songs that can take us away from that reality and help a few minutes go by quickly. That’s what this song does for me on the elliptical machine.

Right from the beginning, You Lift Me Up infuses energy into my runs and/or elliptical machine time at the gym. It’s fun, up beat and keeps the tempo high. As a Christian, and this is a song by a Christian recording artist, it’s a song about how God lifts us up. For me, it brings back memories where God brought me good things. The kind of things to celebrate. When you live life, no matter who you are or what your beliefs are, that are lots of moments where life is hard. However, we all know that life is not always that way. We all have moments that bring us great joy. Whether that’s finishing a marathon, running longer, faster, stronger than you’ve ever done before. Or whether that’s finding the love of your life, becoming a parent for the first time, or even just seeing a great movie. We all have those moments to celebrate. For me, I view those moments as gifts from God. The cool thing about this song, though, is that you can choose to view it as a song about anyone that lifts you up when you’re down. That could be your spouse, significant other, parent, friend, children, mentor, etc. This is the kind of song that bring up those great memories of time with those people as well. When you’re in the heat of battle over long miles, it’s always good to find songs that can distract you from the pain, tiredness, etc. that those long miles can bring with good, positive memories. This is a song for that. In the video clip of Rachael Lampa performing this song, it’s framed as a song about teachers. See what I mean? It can be reframed in your mind for whatever you wish.

I hope that these songs might be ones you’d consider adding to your running/workout playlist. If not, that’s cool. I hope that they will bring some joy into your life today. They are fun songs after all. As for the rest of this week, I’m hoping to have a couple of new tabs up and running by week’s end. The first will be my training calendar for the rest of February through the end of May. It’s been a work in progress and could very well change as I see how things work out in my next half marathon…the Hollywood Half Marathon on April 5th. I needed something to wrap my mind around. This plan is my blueprint. The second tab will put all of my posts on the Walt Disney World Marathon Week Trip in one place and in order. I’ve been editing my photos in flickr. So, if you want to see more of the photos I took on the trip, you can see them all. Between my wife and myself, there are some really great pictures from our trip. Can’t wait to share the rest of the photos with you all. Lastly, I’ve updated the Music from Playlist tab, the Races and Results tab, and the Race Bling tab. So, they are all current. Happy runing everyone!

What songs help you power through the last miles of a long run?