I never listen to music and I almost never run on a treadmill.

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I use the Ipod for long runs only (and the treadmill if I have to run on it). It's too distracting for tempo, intervals, etc. but a life saver on the 2 plus hour runs, especially in the winter when it's dark and cold and otherwise boring.

If you want to run well, forget the earphones.

Years ago I read a fascinating article about the differences between competitive runners and the rest. The more successful runners were "associators" and the rest were "dissociators".

What this means in plain English is that the "associators" spent most of their runs monitoring how their bodies were feeling and making fine adjustments all the time. In contrast, the dissociators used all kinds of techniques to distract themselves from how they were feeling during their runs. They typically did not improve very much.

The "earphone set" are clearly dissociators. Unless you spend most of your training time learning how you are responding to the training, then you won't be able to do it in races. FOCUS!

quote:<HR>Originally posted by SoCalPlodder:
The "earphone set" are clearly dissociators. Unless you spend most of your training time learning how you are responding to the training, then you won't be able to do it in races. FOCUS!<HR>

I sometimes listen to music while doing easy recovery runs, never while running hard workouts or racing. I don't think the study you mentioned (from Jim Fixx's book? I saw that a loooooooooong time ago!) accounted for the fact that not all runs are created equal in terms of intensity and the need for focus.

I read (on this board, I'm pretty sure) that one elite American runner listens to music a lot -- although he said he makes sure he doesn't all the time since he doesn't listen to music while racing. Don't know if I can find the link to it or not, though.

Edited to ask: what did you mean when you said you weren't sure the people running on the treadmills, listening to music, were really runners?

http://This message has been edited by mountainlake (edited Jan-14-2006).