Some Waldman’s Blog – Finding Balance in the Flood of Information

There is lots of controversy over whether people should run with headphones. Indoors, on treadmills, the purest says they are not able to really pay attention to the running. Outside, safety is the issue (the purest still has their case). While, I understand both viewpoints, I just can’t follow the rule. I have to have my music. It provides a quiet distraction from the outside world and gives me the motivation and rthyme to keep moving.

For any purest out there, I have to ask, do you where shoes, clothes… how pure do you need to be? Running is a pure sport to start with, it is about the self, not the equipment. I like the idea of triathlons, but there is too much equipment advantage to be gotten by those who can. Swimming should be pure, but it isn’t once you strap on these high tech suits. Certainly cycling is not pure. You can go down the line… running requires shoes, but until those shoes can have bionic springs or little sonic jets in them, it will continue to be pure. Adding a little music to it does it give enough of an advantage or disadvantage to change that.

I can more justify the safety issue when people are running outside. In certain places, not being able to hear can be very detrimental to runners. If you run in the city where people can cause you harm or on streets (city or country) where vehicles can do you harm, you have to be able to hear them coming. I am fortunate that I am an above average height male. In this respect, I feel bad for people where this is not the case and safety becomes an issue. But this only protects me from the first issue. The second issue is more of a question of common sense and self awareness. This second issue could also apply to driving, so should be ban radios from cars?

Okay, the end of my rant. The real reason I wanted to blog on this topic was the irony of the music that comes on at just the right time. Sometimes I listen to audiobooks or podcasts, but when I listen to music, the right music always seems to come on at the right time to give me a smile. Yesterday as rounded my nieghborhood street for the third time with son in the stroller, the Justin Timberlake song “What Goes Around, Comes Around” came on. The day before, as I made the turn on a out-and-back run, I was starting to feel my lungs burn … on came “No Air” by Jordin Sparks. My favorite was when I was really starting to suffer on a big hill towards the end of a long run… Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited”… go away pain, go away!

I think I should be alble to listen to my music, if only to put the smile on my face instead of the grimis that might otherwise be there. (BTW – my MP3 player is an 8GB Black with Red Creative Zen V Plus. It competes with the Nano and I would take this non-proprietary player over the Apple any day!)