Running Playlist - Go Hard or Go Home

This is #4 in my series of playlist posts - Just Run, Do It Disney, Save a Stationary Bike, Ride a Cowboy, and now...Go Hard or Go Home!

Disclaimer: Many of these songs are NOT for the faint of heart. Some are sexually explicit, most contain profanities, many are both of these things.

Party Up in Here - DMX
Milkshake - Kellis
All Night Long - Buck Cherry
Sound of Madness - Shinedown
Low - Flo Rida
Till I Collapse - Eminem
Porn Star Dancing - My Darkest Days
Whiskey in the Jar - Metallica
Bad Girlfriend - Theory of a Deadman
Burn It Down - Linkin Park
S&M - Rhianna
Can't Stop - Tupelo Honey
Ante Up - MOP
Shots - LMFAO
Bitch Please III - Eminem, Xzibit, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, TuPac, Ja Rule, DMX

When I make the final playlist for my half marathon I am going to have to find a way to strategically place songs off of this list so that they come on right when I start to lose hope of ever finishing. There is just something about these songs that gives me that extra push. If I had to choose one, it would, without a doubt, be Till I Collapse by Eminem. Whenever that song comes on my iPod I can magically increase my speed and push myself harder. I am sure it is entirely due to the pace of the song, but the lyrics don't hurt either.

"Cause sometimes you just feel tired,
Feel weak, and when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up.
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength
And just pull that shit out of you and get that motivation to not give up
And not be a quitter, no matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face and collapse."

Enough said.

Now, go hard and then go home, but before that give me a donation (please).

Running Playlist - Save a Stationary Bike, Ride a Cowboy!

This is installment #3 of my Running Playlist blog posts. #1 Just Run! #2 Do It Disney! I'm trying to come up with a diverse array of tunes because I get bored so quickly. The new iPod Shuffle I had to buy because I misplaced my other one has room for 2GB of music. 2GB is a lot. 2GB is about 500 songs. 2GB is about 37.5 hours of music. I sure as shit better finish my half marathon in that amount of time - about a tenth of that would be satisfying, but I'm hoping for less than that. What's really fun about having that much space for music on such an itty bitty device is that I can load all of my awesome playlists and listen to whichever ones I want. Shuffles are very basic though, so switching playlists requires a lot of skipping through individual songs, but I don't have much else to do while running anyway so $50 for 37.5 hours of music sounds good to me.

Ok, now to the playlist. I grew up in a very small town - shout out to Gilbert Plains, Manitoba (if you're lucky, you'll be able to find it on a map). In actuality, I didn't grow up in the town; I grew up on the farm and that's where my enjoyment of country music and this playlist comes from: Save a Stationary Bike, Ride a Cowboy!

• Back Where I Come From - Kenny Chesney
• High Maintenance Woman - Toby Keith
• Blame It On Your Heart - Patty Loveless
• Chicks Dig It - Chris Cagle
• Cotton Eye Joe - Rednex
• Last Name - Carrie Underwood
• Pick Up Man - Joe Diffie
• Watermelon Crawl - Tracy Byrd
• Better Things To Do - Terry Clark
• Kick A Little - Little Texas
• Boot Scootin Boogie - Brooks & Dunn
• Up - Shania Twain
• These Are My People - Rodney Atkins
• I Like It, I Love It - Tim McGraw
• You Can't Lose Me - Faith Hill
• Kiss This - Aaron Tippin
• Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy - Big & Rich

Clearly the title of this playlist is inspired by the last song on the list. I don't care how you do it, just sweat a little from time-to-time! I only included one song from each artist on the list, but if I had to pick just one country music artist to run to, I'd pick Toby Keith. He's got a bunch of upbeat songs perfect for working out. A few others I enjoy are: How Do Like Me Now, Shoulda Been a Cowboy, Beer For My Horses (Willie can rock!), Red Solo Cup, and I Love This Bar. I Love This Bar is kind of slow, but it was huge when I was in college and it brings back some of the best memories I have from those two years of my life. Sometimes a song doesn't have to be upbeat to give you that extra get-up-and-go; it just needs to make you feel good. 

You know what else makes me feel good? DONATIONS :)

Running Playlist - Do it Disney!

Who doesn't love Disney? I sure do! The super fun songs from classic Disney movies provide a nice change from typical running tunes. I've got songs from The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and The Beast, Marry Poppins, The Jungle Book, Aladdin, Snow White, Pocahontas, Cinderella, Robin Hood, Lady and The Tramp, and Mulan. You recognise all of those right? Ok, then I have a couple songs from movies I've never heard of - The Monkey's Uncle and The Wonderful World of Color. Finally, I have the Mickey Mouse Club theme song and a sing-a-long song from the 1930s. Let's do something fun; I'll post the songs and you guess which Disney film they're from! I like games; don't you?

When you do as much running as I do, you quickly tire of the same old playlists which is the major reason I've decided to create and post these. I know how difficult it is to find good running music. Round 1 = Just Run. Now for Round 2:

Do it Disney

• Circle of Life
• Under the Sea
• Hakuma Matata
• I Just Can't Wait to Be King
• Chim Chim Cheree
• Spoonful of Sugar
• Monkey's Uncle
• Work Song
• Minnie's Yoo Hoo
• Be Our Guest
• One Jump Ahead
• Gaston
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• Bare Necessities
• Let's Go Fly a Kite
• Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo
• Heigh Ho
• Colors of the Wind
• O-de-lally
• I'm Professor Ludwig Von Drake
• The Siamese Cat Song
• Make a Man Outta You

There you have it Disney-loving runners - 22 songs at approximately 2.5 minutes each for a total of 55 minutes. That's a short, but good run and might be just enough Disney. I'll admit, as much as I love Disney, the songs start to all sound the same at a certain point of extended listening. This list should be just enough to keep you singing along and bopping your head while you run your heart out!

If these songs made you grin, how about making my day and donating to my run? - I'll sing you a Disney song ;)

What's your favorite Disney movie? song?