Hills Playlist

My iPod is a 5th generation Nano and the memory is full.  I haven’t added or deleted any songs since probably 2012 or 2013; it can be so hard to pick which ones to remove!  When I go running with my iPod I usually have it on shuffle, which provides an extreme variety of music.  It ranges from Celine Dion to Tim Janis to Dirty Dancing to Genesis to Bo Burnham to Motion City Soundtrack, which can make for an interesting run!  (I hit shuffle just now to see what would come up, and that was the result!)

Every once in a while I skip past songs because they just don’t match my mood at that point in my run.  But sometimes something magical happens!

Sometimes an unassuming song will sync with what type of music I need!  This has happened to me several times!  The drum beat will match my pace as I hurdle tree roots along the trail.  Or the bass will drop at the same time that I jump from the sidewalk to the pavement of a parking lot.  One time I was starting up a hill and “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC came on.

This may not be a pump up song for everyone, but for me it is!  It was great!

Even though I have over a thousand songs on my iPod, I can pretty confidently claim to be able to identify most of them within the first few seconds of music.  This makes it easy to quickly skip past songs that I know I’m not in the mood for and play songs that get me motivated.

So when I have it on shuffle and encounter a hill, I skip forward to one that really gives me the spark to dig deep and conquer it.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t always need to listen to fast paced techno in order to keep me going.   However, I have a few playlists that I made while I was rowing in college (called Lift CD, Fast Erg, and GoGOGO) that have a bunch of songs to get me pumped up.  I definitely recommend building a go-to playlist filled with certain songs that have that effect on you personally and every time you get to a hill or any particularly difficult part of your run (midway point, losing steam on a long endless road) switch to that playlist to put you in the intense mood.

For me, it’s usually something that has a hint (or a heaping bucket full) of dubstep.

Running to songs with dubstep in them make me feel like a steam-powered train or a set of gears, grinding and turning to propel myself up the hill.  The muscles in my legs, together with the propulsion of my arms, work to power me up the hill, and the dubstep music is the grinding sound the gears inside my muscles make.  I guess sometimes I like to think of myself as a steam-powered robot when I run up hills, and dubstep helps get me there.  Whatever works.  Exercise can be very/mostly mental!

Like the little engine that could, I chug chug chug up the hill to the wub wub wub of the dubstep.  Get it?  Okay I’ll stop now.

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Here are some of the songs that motivate me up the hills in my workout!  Not all of them contain dubstep, so feel free to explore these songs whether or not you are a dubstep fan.

“Take Flight” – Lindsey Stirling

“Shatter Me” – Lindsey Stirling ft. Lzzy Hale

“Elements” – Lindsey Stirling (I could list pretty much every Lindsey Stirling song, but I’ll leave it with just these three.  I plan on writing a lot more about her music in future posts.)

“Bass Down Low” – Dev ft. The Cataracs (Proper Villains Dubstep Remix)

“Lights” – Ellie Goulding (Bassnectar Remix) (Her original version is also great, but even Ellie herself said she likes this remix.  It’s on her own Vevo channel!)

“Figure 8” – Ellie Goulding

“Hanging On” – Ellie Goulding (I See Monstas Remix)

“Iron Man” – Black Sabbath

“Brick by Boring Brick” – Paramore

“Black Sheep” – Metric (I first heard this song in the movie “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”)

“Space Jam” – Quad City DJ’s (Ahh, nostalgia…)

“All of the Lights” – Kanye West ft. Rihanna, Kid Cudi, et al. (I don’t like much rap music, but I like the background of this song.  So I just tune out his rapping.  I dig it.)

“Louder” – DJ Fresh ft. Sian Evans

“Hot N Cold Rain” – The White Panda (My boyfriend doesn’t normally like remixes, but he likes this one!  Winning!)

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Do any of these songs pump you up?  Try them out during your next workout when you encounter a hill or start to lose steam.  What are some songs that help you get up hills?  (Literally or figuratively)  Leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!

-Rebecca