Bands playing along the road during races are great. Music gets you out of your own head for a while, and if you’re like me, you don’t want to be in my head for a half-marathon’s worth of running.
But. If I hear “Eye of the Tiger” one more time at a race, I’m going to run off the course and pull all the power cords out of all the amplifiers and then where will you and your power chords be?
Yeah, I won’t do that. At about mile 10 I have enough energy to groan and run, and at mile 12 I have enough to grimace and trot and nowhere near enough for a gratuitous and impolite detour. And I know they mean well. But, there have to be other songs that bands who are willing to stand by the side of the road can play for sweaty, grimacing, and tired people. Anything by the Clash would do, and to prove I’m not entirely stuck in the past, OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” ought to work as well. But that one song from that one Rocky movie (I refuse to look this up, and don’t bother telling me)…I heard my quota the first time I heard it.
It was still a lovely day for a long, timed run with a few thousand like-minded folks, and I am grateful to anybody willing to stand by the side of the road and clap or play or yell, and I am grateful to have finished without major injury. Sure wish I’d remembered the Body Glide, though…
