Today was my first time hitting the running trail in about two-and-a-half weeks; I ran a 10K on the 4th of July (beat last year’s time by 5 minutes!), took a few days off, then managed to squeeze in two short runs before wedding craziness took over the schedule. This week has also been pretty hectic, getting back into the swing of things with my summer class, seeing family and friends off home again, and spending a bittersweet day packing up two of our best friends, who are heading off to exciting new jobs in Los Angeles.

All this is to say that by this afternoon, I couldn’t take it anymore, so I grabbed my iPod Shuffle and hit the trail. It was one of those days when the Shuffle did its job flawlessly; from the first track to the last, it gave me just the tunes I needed to keep on pace. Mid-way through the run, I thought to myself “if it keeps this up, I may have a new blog series on my hands”… and it did, so here you go. It was a short run, a shade under 3 miles, just enough to start working out the kinks without overdoing it.

1) “Feel it in my Bones” (First State Remix), DJ Tiësto. One of my favorite workout tracks; the beat is just constant enough to keep up a steady pace, but has enough variance that it doesn’t get annoying, and, unlike so many techno tracks, the vocals / lyrics actually compliment the beat.

2) “The Four Horsemen,” Metallica. A little old-school metal was exactly what I needed to chase down the thumping techno of the first track!

3) “20th Century Boy,” Powerman 5000 (covering T. Rex). I had forgotten that this track was in the mix, and while it’s not a favorite song of mine, it gave me a nice boost just as I hit the 1.5 mile mark, right when things are starting to loosen up. This is one of those songs that makes me think about cashing in everything I’ve got on an early 1950s Chevy coupe, buying a wicked crate motor, and spending my days building an insane rat rod in a shack out in the country. Ah, a boy can dream…

4) “Sail,” AWOLNATION. Again, a track that I like, but don’t have a particular affinity for. I’ve had the album, Megalithic Symphony, for awhile now, and it’s been growing on my slowly.

5) “Mein Herz Brennt,” Rammstein. When track 4 kicked in, I thought “wouldn’t it be awesome if Rammstein came up in the mix,” and then there they were, just a few moments later! I really do love this track, and I’ve had a great fondness for Rammstein going back nearly 15 years now. No, I never “gothed-out” in high school or college, but I’ve always loved this band. A great mix of tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top angst, and steady beats with finely-tuned guitar work. I started running to this song back in college, when I had to (carefully) clutch a discman in my hands, hoping that the 7-second anti-skip buffer would hold out.

There you have it — got a running mix you’d care to share?