Cycling, running, and naps.

Today's workout was 15 miles on the bike.  Cycling is fast becoming a workout to which I look forward (as long as I'm not snot-rocketing and almost losing my balance and slamming the nails of my right hand into the handlebars or falling off the bike).

The one thing I don't like about it, however, is that I'm too scared to wear my headphones during a ride.

For some reason I will blast music on a run, not caring if I can hear anything around me (dangerous, I know; the hubbs is AWESOME at the safety lecture, thankyouverymuch).  On the bike I am scared you-know-whatless to not hear a car come up behind me.  Maybe it's because I am riding with traffic and I run against traffic.  Maybe it's because I am a much faster moving object on the bike whose motion will need to be changed using a higher force due to my higher acceleration (thanks, Newton), and this force can send me hurtling through the air much like a projectile with only gravity to act as an unbalanced force to make me slam into the ground.  Or maybe it's because I'm a total moron with a subconscious death wish.  Who knows?

I do miss my music during bike rides, because it really does motivate me.  I couldn't have gotten through the last 3 miles of my marathon without it, because it allows me to go inside the music and forget about my suffering for a while.  Without music, I would probably realize that what I was doing was totally insane and sit down in the middle of the course, trying not to cry and begging passing runners for food.  Or a ride back to my car.

But if you have a music snob in your life, you realize that not all music is created equal.  You see, I will listen to whatever will motivate me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, whether that music be deemed "cool" or not.  I guess you could say that I have a lot of musical guilty pleasures on the old iPod shuffle that I use on my runs.  Here are a few of those gems:

• "Disturbia" & "Please Don't Stop the Music" by Rhianna
• "Call Me Maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen
• "Safety Dance" by Men Without Hats (That song is old.  I hope they found their hats by now.)
• Pretty much anything by Lady GaGa
• Any flamboyant song by Erasure (which is pretty much all of them)

You see, when I'm running, I really could care less about lyrics.  I only care about the beat and the overall tone of the song.  Sometimes I want the driving beat of some crazy metal song, especially when I'm slamming out some speed work.  Other times I need the music to back off and help me enjoy the long run.  When I'm racing, I don't remember what songs come on half the time because I am focused solely on meeting my goals and I just need some background noise in order to get that focus and accomplish them.  I just switch the ol' iPod on "shuffle" and let the music play away while my mind goes somewhere else for a while.

So I guess you could say I'm not really thinking on a run.  I'm just running so I can think clearly later.

Or just take a nap afterwards.  I'm still tired from Ragnar, and all I can really think of right now is naps.