{"id":1554,"date":"2013-07-18T13:13:29","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T11:13:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1554"},"modified":"2013-08-01T13:34:20","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T11:34:20","slug":"my-running-playlist-and-a-lady-named-bertha","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=1554","title":{"rendered":"My Running Playlist and a Lady Named Bertha"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"We\u0142tawa<\/a>Today is a whole new day in my running experience. You see, today I am using a few of these so-called \u2018applications\u2019 that my phone employs. Finally, after scanning beyond the first two pages of my Smartphone, I have found a whole list of these \u2018applications\u2019 just sitting there, waiting to be used, and add difficulties and frustrations to my life that I didn\u2019t even know existed.<\/p>\n

Last night, I made a very short playlist of running music. That way I can avoid scanning my MP3 player, whose playlist option is broken, for something other than the Yogi transcendental sleep music and Cutting Edge Upper Intermediate 3.4.<\/p>\n

I am also using something called Runkeeper, which uses GPS to measure time and distance. Bertha updates my distance and pace every five minutes. (She is my RunKeeper Lady. I named her Bertha because I am uncomfortable being judged by a computer, but I\u2019ve been judged by women my whole life.)<\/p>\n

I step outside this morning excited to run along the Vltava, feeling a little like a Luddite in Plato\u2019s cave\u2026only with GPS capabilities and the Rolling Stones. What follows is an overview of the next 45 minutes of my life.<\/p>\n

Start<\/b><\/p>\n

Bertha says, \u201cYou have now started running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song: A Day in the Life by The Beatles. Good song to start out with, rising crescendo is a pleasant metaphor to a slow start and gaining speed. Geniuses! Oh, damn you Mark David Chapman and Yoko Ono. This was a good decision.<\/p>\n

Song: Let\u2019s Get it Started by The Black Eyed Peas. Good energy, something I need in the beginning of the run, as I pass from the leafy tree-lined streets of Podoli and enter the sun-baked stretch below Vy\u0161ehrad. Sweaty time starts.<\/p>\n

Observation: Boy, the Black Eyed Peas sure like to reference themselves in their songs, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n

Minute 10<\/b><\/p>\n

Bertha, \u201c10 minutes. You have run .98 miles. Your average speed is 10 minutes and 11 seconds per mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

I notice a sneering quality to Bertha, as though she\u2019s saying, \u2018A 10 + minute mile? Come on, chubs, move your ass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song: Rocky Theme. Sneer if you want, this is a damn energetic song. I\u2019m not me when I run to the Rocky Theme, I\u2019m a short, stocky Italian underdog in life, running to better his\u2026D\u2019oh!<\/p>\n

Minute 20 <\/b><\/p>\n

Bertha, \u201c20 minutes. You have run 2.1 miles. Your average speed is 9 minutes and 53 seconds per mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

I notice a bit of respect in Bertha\u2019s tone. One that says, \u201cOK fat boy, you\u2019re picking up the pace. I can get behind this run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Song: Die Moldau by Smetana. This is an astoundingly beautiful piece of classical music. And I figure since I run along Die damn Moldau (The German name for the Vltava River) every day, I might as well listen to it in symphonic form.<\/p>\n

She mocks me as I run, too. Always. On a hot day such as today, she just drifts along all cool and refreshing, looking like the backdrop in a beer commercial. During my winter runs she makes my jogs over the bridges bone chilling. Sometimes she floods and makes parts of my run impossible.<\/p>\n

She is a bitch. But it\u2019s possible I am just cranky.<\/p>\n

Minute 25<\/b><\/p>\n

Bertha says, \u201c25 minutes. You have run 2.2 miles. Your average speed is 11 minutes and 21 seconds per mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can almost hear her laughing at me.<\/p>\n

My reaction: \u201cOh Bertha, I find it highly unlikely that I have gone .1 mile in the last 5 minutes. Isn\u2019t there a chance you are f*cking with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

Song: Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones. If you don\u2019t have this on your running playlist, get it on there now. There is no song that urges you forward, whether it\u2019s the devil, the growing intensity, or you (hypothetically) pretend you\u2019re actually Nicky Hopkins playing the piano.<\/p>\n

Despite the good pace and good song, I am miffed at Bertha\u2019s miscalculation and await her next update.<\/p>\n

Minute 40<\/b><\/p>\n

Bertha interrupts Tom Traubert\u2019s Blues (Tom Waits) to inform me that I am at \u201cMinute 40\u201d and that I am holding steady at \u201c2.2 miles\u201d \u201cMy average pace,\u201d she goes on to mention, is now at an incredible and corpse-like \u201c18 minutes and 10 seconds per mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

I am not surprised by the update, for it is what she told me at minute 30, and at minute 35. She is obviously asleep on the job. I am disappointed with Bertha. But I love Tom Waits.<\/p>\n

Minute 45<\/b> (three minutes after I finish my run)<\/p>\n

I am walking up the hill to my flat, Paul Simon is singing about that rambunctious lad, Julio and their time at a schoolyard. My playlist was a good call, as I didn\u2019t have to fumble for anything in a sweaty ball of pain. Plus, it was all the music I really wanted to hear with none of the crap in between.<\/p>\n

However, technology has once again pissed me off and Bertha\u2019s lackluster performance pretty much nixes out any chance I\u2019ll use this Runkeeper again to calculate anything other than a walk to the bathroom.<\/p>\n

As I reach the top of the hill Bertha chimes in one more time; I guess she\u2019s done with her coffee break: \u201cMinute 45, you have run 2.2 miles. You\u2019re average pace is 20 minutes and 27 seconds per mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

I hate you, Bertha.<\/p>\n

But I love running to music. Runners, what’s on your playlist?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is a whole new day in my running experience. You see, today I am using a few of these so-called \u2018applications\u2019 that my phone employs. Finally, after scanning beyond the first two pages of my Smartphone, I have found a whole list of these \u2018applications\u2019 just sitting there, waiting to be used, and add […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-p4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1554"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1582,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1554\/revisions\/1582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}