Possessed Magazine Running Blog

THE MUSIC ISSUE

DECEMBER 2023

Welcome to the MUSIC issue of POSSESSED. What does music have to do with running? Not much if you don’t listen to music when you run. But for those of you who do, you’re gonna love this issue. It’s the MUSIC ISSUE!

First things first: Let’s be clear that music isn’t just music when it comes to running. I mean to say it’s not inconsequential. The science of music and athletic performance is utterly insane and something to be taken seriously. In a way, music in sports can be viewed as a mysterious sort of doping. Music—literally any music—lights up those areas of the brain associated with movement (this is why you tap your feet without noticing), and the neurons in those areas begin to fire less frequently but with greater amplitude. Then, incredibly, those messages in the brain reverberate in your muscles, aiding blood flow, oxygenation, and everything else that our bodies need to move quickly over long distances. This phenomenon is magnified when we listen to music that we like or that we have an emotional connection to, but it still happens when listening to music that we don’t particularly care for, like the trash they always blast at the starting line on race day. Which brings me to an important point...
What’s up with that? It’s 6:30 AM. I don’t want to hear ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ when I’m lining up to use a portable toilet that has been warmed to 75° Celsius by the asses of countless strangers. Also, what’s up with the dude that wheels his decks out onto the street during a marathon to play a thundering EDM set like it’s helpful and not really, really annoying? And what about the little kid with the trumpet, the hippy drum circle, and the local amateur ukulele orchestra covering ‘Wonderwall’? What the fuck are they doing? The starting line is the big one for me, though. I ran a marathon recently, and while we—the eight-thousand sleepless runners crammed behind the ribbon—blew on our hands and trotted on the spot (it was freezing), the race organizers regaled us with a medley of deafening 90s dance hits, including ‘What Is Love’, ‘All That She Wants’, and, puzzlingly, ‘Barbie Girl’ by Aqua. Why do that to good people who paid $120 to be here? Doesn’t make sense. If you’re a race organizer, I’d like you to consider using one of the playlists in this issue’s Mix Tapes story or maybe an episode of Chances With Wolves (who we interviewed for this issue). Failing that, perhaps you could just drop the needle on something from Matt Shapiro’s top five records in High Rotation (skip the Nickelback, though; sorry, Matt). Food for thought.

Welcome to POSSESSED #48: The MUSIC Issue.

x Jason