Turn On, Tune In, Run Out

Do you listen to music when out for a run?
For some people this is a serious issue.  I know people who will never go out for a run without them. They are so used to doing all their training with just their motivational App for company that even in a group run or race the earphones have to go in.  For them it's as necessary and automatic as tying their shoelaces.  For anyone else who regularly runs with a club or trains with friends, you are probably like me and you wouldn't dream of shutting yourself off from your running buddies.

If I'm out for a run with friends, on a club run or in any kind of group running situation, then no I don't use earphones.  If it's going out with friends or club, then I'm there to run AND chat.  Even if it's a non-serious event, like a parkrun, I want to hear what's going on around me so I don't get in the way of someone wanting to overtake me and I don't want to pass up the opportunity to chat to people I haven't met before as I run.  If it's an organised race, the parkrun principle still applies (I'll chat to people whenever possible, especially in halfs and marathons) and I don't want to get in the way of faster runners or not hear what course marshals need to tell me.  Of course in many races it's also the rule that earphones are not allowed.

What the rules say

This sort of footwear is of course banned from your local
 athletics meeting

UKAthletics don't have any official rules on wearing earphones or use of mobile phones, but the IAAF do. Under the section of the IAAF rulebook covering "assistance" the use of any audio or visual device including mobile phones or similar is considered assistance and is therefore not allowed.  I think where they are coming from is that you could actually have a race plan recorded by your coach with a lot of instructions and motivation for key parts of the race and that could be considered similar to having your coach in the competition area telling you what to do, which, like having springs in your shoes, is also not allowed.*  However, there is no actual rule that says that runners are not allowed to wear earphones for safety reasons.

UK Athletics do however state that race promoters should look at the safety of their event and judge the risk of having runners not being able to hear marshal's instructions and, if they think necessary, then ban earphones.  That means that the official race rules of most road and trail races do ban earphones, but in practice most races let people get away with using them.  The one time I have been in a race where the organisers actually enforced this rule was Abingdon marathon.

If you have a look at this year's results for Abingdon you will find at the bottom a list naming all those disqualified.  This year there was one runner DQ'd for running with someone else's number and 6 DQ'd for wearing earphones.  I can fully understand Abingdon's strict stance on this.  They have maybe four partial road closures on the course and they are all manned by several marshals with traffic control lights or stop/go signs.  As you approach the crossing point, they stop the traffic for you and you cross when you are told, hopefully without breaking stride.  In this case you have to be able to hear what they are telling you clearly for your own safety. So "Earphones - Nein Danke!" as they say in Abingdon. Or they would if Abingdon happened to be in Germany (Eh!? - Ed).

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
The only time I do wear earphones is if I am out on a long run by myself.  After an hour or so in my own company I kind of get fed up with the sound of the lone voice in my head that keeps asking silly questions like "How's that knee feeling?" "What about that ankle niggle you had last week, is it coming back again?" and the classic "Look at the size of that hill! Are you quite mad?"

I don't get a lot of time to listen to music that I enjoy, as there are always competing tastes when driving with the family, TV on at home and my journey to work is usually by bicycle or motorbike. Even when I travel for work by train I'm either doing something to prepare for the meeting I'm heading for or just reading in the Quiet Carriage.  So, the long run is when I get to listen to music and it has become an extra boost to get me out the door - something to make what could be a 2 or 3 hour steady slog something to look forward to.

As for what I listen to, it's a mixed bag.  I started out with a compilation of what I thought would be good running tunes, so my running playlists include such things as Canned Heat "Going Up the Country", Big Audio Dynamite "Union, Jack", Dandy Warhols "Bohemian Like You", Gomez "Silence", Lemon Jelly "The Staunton Lick" - all of them up tempo, uplifting songs to keep your mind in a happy place. I even found some running related tunes: Bow Wow Wow "I Want Candy", The Clash "Train in Vain", Hefner's "Pull Yourself Together", James's "Sit Down" and "Come Home", the Alt Country classic by Smog "Hit the Ground Running" as well as Rock Steady classics like "A Message to You, Rudy" with it's salutary message to "Stop your running around, got to think of your future" which is just right for when you can feel that calf cramp starting to set in.

The only problem with the playlist is, I can't be bothered to wade through 1500+ songs beyond the few albums I know well to add different tunes to it and so I have listened to the same stuff over and over again.  No matter how jaunty a tune is I'm getting a bit fed up with it by the time I have heard it for the third time on the same run.  So the cure for this has been to just set my Walkman to play all songs on shuffle.  Now I have been out several times running for an hour or more before I've even heard a song that I've played more than once in the last 2 or 3 years and, although not every one is rocking along at a fast pace, I have been listening to some awesome music.  It has certainly been keeping my mind fresh, interested and positive and it's something that I will seriously have to consider using when I come to running the lonely small hours of Endure 24 next year.

What to Wear on a Long Run
So, this is turning out to be the blog post that has everything. A mildly controversial topic, a couple of points on racing rules, headline grabbing stats from Abingdon, some super advice on how you too can impress the opposite sex with your new found great taste in music, and now a product review too!

Given that you have decide you need some audio assistance to get you through that long run, what to wear?  I have tried 3 different earphones with my current Sony Experia phone: the phone manufacturer's supplied earbuds, "hook on" running earphones from JVC and "clip in" running earphones from Monster.

Earbuds

My Sony earbuds. OK for sitting very still on a train,
but rubbish everywhere else.

OK, the cheapest of the cheap, effectively free earphones.  The sound is pretty good as they do a good job of blocking out room noise and, as they are meant to be used for listening to music on your Walkman App, Sony have made these with a reasonable bass and clear mid and top range.  The problem for me comes when I start to move around.  It's not just these ones, I have never been able to get a pair of earbuds to stay in place no matter what size they are.  Maybe I have the wrong shape ear canal or something, but I can't go more than 100m before I have to push them back in place.  I have even tried taping them on, but that only lasted a couple of miles until sweat caused them to come unstuck.  They even get a bit messy with sweat and earwax and are not that easy to clean.  So, these are not even a last resort.  If I had a choice of running with these or without, then I would just have no music.

Hook Ons

JVC HA-EB75 sports earphones. Cheap but effective.

I have been using these JVC HA-EB75 sports earphones for a couple of years and they have been very good for the price.  I think they cost me about £15 when I got them, but you can pick these up for about £10 now.  They are pretty basic and have no phone or volume controls. The part that hooks over your ear slides along the lower body giving them some size adjustment and the speaker part sits against your ear canal.  The wires are quite long so you can put your player on a belt or in a pocket, but I usually use them with my phone on an arm band so I have to wind up the wires and stuff them into the strap.  This is OK, but the wires do tend to get tangled up.  They have a small screw on the inside face and as this is not stainless steel it has rusted a bit from being regularly dowsed in sweat, but nothing has broken in about a hundred uses on long runs, so they seem well made and robust enough.

The sound is reasonable and they have never come off.  The minor problem I have with them is that they tend to sit more loosely against your ear after a while which lets in more outside noise and reduces the volume of the music.  This is slightly annoying when running alongside a busy road if you can't hear the music any more, so you might find yourself wanting to turn up the volume and having to stop running to do so.  The fact that I am not completely cut off from the outside world is a good thing for me, as I want to be able to hear the traffic around me even if I am taking special care to stop and look at road crossings.  I have given them an occasional clean with a baby wipe and that seems to be fine to keep them looking clean enough.

Clip Ins

Monster iSport Strive. Much more expensive,
but the quality shows.

I have recently acquired a pair of Monster iSport Strive earphones as the free gift after I got a subscription to Runner's World magazine.  These were advertised as being worth £60 and that may have been the case at one time a year or two ago, but you can get these for £40 now. Again these are the basic end of the range from Monster and have no phone or volume controls, so if you want these features or more funky colours you have to pay an extra £20.  Again these come with a quite long cable so I wind this up to jam it into my phone armband, but the flat shaped cable seems to unravel itself and doesn't get tangled.

I was a bit dubious about whether these would stay in place.  They hook in to the inner part of your ear in a ridge a little above your ear canal and take a bit of getting used to, jamming them in just the right place, but once in they have been completely secure.  So far they have stayed clean no matter how sweaty I have got, but even if they got mucky they are waterproof and washable so you could give them a wipe down, scrub with an old toothbrush or even put them through the washing machine. Maybe tie them into a sock if you were to do this or the cables could get pulled off.

On the go they have been really good.  They stay securely in place and haven't moved around at all so the sound level that you can hear stays the same throughout your run.  They are designed to allow some surrounding noise in, so you can hear car traffic around you and if an approaching cyclist calls out.  I think this is preferable to being completely cut off from your surroundings and is at least a bit safer.  The sound is a bit of a revelation compared to my usual JVC 'hook ons' and maybe this is something to do with the better and more secure fit.  They have a nice full punchy bass sound and clear mid and top range and I don't feel I have to turn the volume way up to get decent quality sound even with traffic around.  I'm really glad these have worked out so well for me, as I have a lot of miles coming up with training for next summer's ultra and a few marathons in between.


*Seriously, UKA and IAAF rules actually say you are not allowed to have springs in your shoes.