On The Run with John Stifler: Eminem or Saint-Saëns? The playlist that powers your run

Three weeks before this year’s Boston Marathon, the Boston Globe’s “Weekend” section featured a piece titled “A playlist for your long run this weekend.” Three weeks prior to race day is when marathoners typically do a long training run, perhaps 18 or 20 miles. The idea of the Globe piece was that such a long run can be mentally as well as physically challenging. Are you really up for spending that much time putting one foot in front of the other? Would some music help you get going?

Those questions led to interviews, asking elite runners (Bill Rodgers), athletes in other sports (former Bruins’ star Zdeno Chara, who in 2024 ran Boston in 3:30:52) and readers what music particularly motivates them. With one exception, the result was a long list of pop songs, from Bruce Springsteen to the Dropkick Murphys to Eminem to the Bangles. The exception was Boston Symphony Orchestra publicist Matthew Erikson, a marathoner who favored the finale to Saint-Saens’ Organ Symphony.

But does the music mostly just get you moving, or does hearing music while you’re running actually improve the intensity and/or quality of a workout? The article didn’t address that question, but exercise scientists have been studying it for decades.

Most people looking for music to enhance a workout think immediately of something energetic, upbeat, with a consistent rhythm. Hard rock, uptempo soft rock, disco (yes), rap. Scientific data, however, suggest that slow, soothing melodies may be more effective.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee tested subjects on treadmills, each wearing a headset and listening to loud, exciting music, slow soft music, or, in the control group, no music. At a given pace, the subjects listening to hard rock reported a lower perceived effort than those listening to nothing. So did the group listening to soft music – but that group could also go longer than the other two groups before reaching exhaustion. As the researchers wrote, “Listening to slow, soft music led to increased exercise endurance.”

In other words, Matthew Erikson was onto something. OK, Saint-Saens’ finale isn’t quiet, but neither is it insistently rhythmic. It swells like waves. For a runner, it might seem like a very sophisticated version of the electronic theme music to the film “Chariots of Fire,” about the 1924 Olympics.

My own experience reinforces these impressions. A sports and fitness company once sent me a recording of music they said was designed precisely to match my training pace. “We employed the natural rhythms of the human body as the foundation for the beat,” they wrote.

I put on the headphones, set out eagerly for a test run, and within five minutes had to stop and shut off the music. The problem, I think, was that matching my pace to the beat — something that was supposed to happen automatically — involved a conscious effort that was quite distracting. I felt as though my body and the music were wrestling with each other.

For a spectacular contrast, a few days later I did a hilly 14-mile training run while listening to Mozart’s “Requiem.” It was a blissful workout, challenging yet seemingly effortless. One reason is that when you’re exercising and listening to such music, you are not trying to match your footfalls to the notes. Instead, you’re doing what exercise scientists and educated athletes call dissociative running, i.e., focusing on something other than the physical effort.

Most runners are familiar with the experience. You go out for a run, carry on a conversation or listen to music you like, and then you realize you’ve been running for 40 minutes while barely aware of the time. The opposite kind of running is associative, in which you are focused on the exercise itself. Elite runners typically run associatively. So do many average runners, especially in a timed workout or a race.

What I find even more interesting, however, is how, when you are not wearing headphones or earbuds and listening to some playlist, a tune will run through your head, unsummoned. When that happens, you may notice that the music matches your pace perfectly. Probably that’s because your brain automatically sets a metronome to adjust the tune’s tempo to your particular pace. For me, sometimes it’s Bach’s 3rd Brandenburg Concerto and sometimes it’s Elton John. Or, if I’m cross-country skiing, it’s the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride.” Watch “Help!” again and you’ll know why.

Regardless of any technical analysis, you’re probably motivated by music you like. It may not extend your endurance, but if it persuades you to get moving, why argue?

John Stifler has taught writing and economics at UMass and has written extensively for running magazines and newspapers. He can be reached at [email protected]