Tag: workout music

The Daily EO: June 6th, 2012

Do you remember those diamond commercials by De Beers?  The ones with the shadow people and that music?  You the ones – you’d find tears on your face and hate yourself for being sucked into “A Diamond is Forever”.  I love that piece of music.  It is rich, dramatic, and exciting.  It is “Palladio” and composed by Karl Jenkins – a modern classicist (he’s actually still alive).  Until I wrote this post, I thought Beethoven wrote it.  If you are creating music in the 20th century that people think was written 300 years ago, I think you know how to fit in with the big guys.

So, imagine my curiosity when I found someone who remixed it way back in 2002.  Yes, Just like they do with Lady Gaga, Madonna, LMFAO, etc, etc.  Someone remixed Palladio!  I listened to the clip and immediately downloaded and added it to my workout playlist.

I went for a run with my workout music on shuffle as always and at the 1.9 km mark on my run, that song started up. I was running on a generally straight patch, and I had just run up a bunch of slow twisty hills.  I was tired and really didn’t feel like running anymore.  But I felt like I was in a commercial – not for diamonds this time, but something that mattered.  Something bold.  Important.  Something bigger than just a girl running on the road.

I ran.

June 6th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary:  I cut 30 seconds off my regular min/km pace today.

Allegretto by Bond from their Album Shine

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The Daily EO: May 25th, 2012

Today I signed up for a website called Run Hundred.   Every couple of days, I get an e-mail from them to tell me about new songs added to their site that are available for voting on.  40,000 people then listen to the songs and indicate whether they would work out to the songs.  There is a top ten of the month, top ten of all time, top ten work-out collections, etc.

To me, music is essential for working out.  My favorites right are Hello! (Martin Solveig featuring Dragonette) and We Speak No Americano (Yolanda Be Cool and DCup).  I hear those two songs, my feet want to start running.  I have about 55 songs on my workout mix now and I have probably heard each of then about 20+ times or so.  I am okay with that – because every time I hear one it signals to my brain that it is time to start exercising.  But honestly, sometimes I feel like I’m in Grade 9 listening to Richard Marx.  I’m hoping Run Hundred will help me keep my mix fresh.  I especially like running with my iPod as it focuses me on me – the running, the exercise.   It is not about anyone else but me.  Pass me, or I pass you, this is about and for me, not anyone else.

When I attended UVic in the mid 90s, I attended a seminar on how to use e-mail – because frankly I had never used e-mail before.  It was before spam, before blogs, before social networks, before the internet changed things.  I am approaching middle age, I guess – and there are children now don’t know what a World Book Encyclopedia Set is.  I still use the books – that my mom hasn’t recycled yet – to settle discussions when I return home.  But I wouldn’t suggest looking up cell phones, Russia, Geothermal Energy, American Idol, George Bernard Shaw or blogging.

I am not lamenting the old or the new.  Just amazing what we can do now, that just 20 years ago hadn’t even been conceived of.

Now, I can a summary of 40,000 people’s opinions on workout music delivered directly to my e-mail in-box.  If I like any of the songs, I can click (Amazon, iTunes, or Emusic) and have it delivered to my iPod and be running with it in 2 minutes.  My god.  Remember the Columbia House CD Club?  We thought that was pretty sophisticated.

May 25th, 2012 Extra-Ordinary:  A wish that the world’s children could experience both the convenience of the new and the romance of the old.

Maintenance May Day 25:
Made Beet Brownies.  Ate 6 Beet Brownies.  Beets or not, still pretty calorically dense.  (soul).