Run One: The Last One is a-Green

First run of the journal, and the one which inspired it...
Track One: The Bar-Kays - Six O Clock News Report (4.09 mins)
An excellent warm up record, which jogs along at a gentle deep funk pace, urging you on with a sotto voce 'news news news news 6 o clock news report'. A chap wailing about Vietnam and The Ghetto takes the mind off imminent heart failure and the colour of your sputum. Took me as far as the newsagents on the corner and beyond the 'fuck it I may as well go home before I die' stage. Just the job.
Track Two: Ride - The Vines (2.36 mins)
Now that is what I am talking about. It was as I was hooning through the park at the sort of speed that would have busted a heart rate monitor, had I bothered to fork out for one, that I came up with the journal idea. There are songs that make the hellish monotony of a run suddenly delightful and this a good example. Funky drums accelerate the pace, then the adrenaline is treated to a burst of what is a seriously rocking chorus, not to mention strangely appropriate lyrics (I find that physical endeavour makes one infantile in this respect, like a crap documentary soundtrack in which having someone singing RUN RUN RUN to accompany a run seems like a great idea). I thought to myself, I should note them down, and thus calculate the length of the run in rock music. And mentally preparing a review might take my mind off the voice in my head that's begging me to stop before it's too late.
Track Three: Four Horsemen - Aphrodites Child (5.52 mins. I managed 4 of them I think)
Time for a little break as Demis Roussos's angelic tones conjure the Apocalypse, which is timely as my lungs had just exploded. But no time to wind down, as Vangelis soon enough gives the first burst of the 'The FIRST horse was whiiiiite' refrain: a sort of preview of the main event which inspired me to take the slightly longer route to try to string it out a bit and race home, victorious, to the endless fa fafa fa fa de lalala. That's the beauty of this one as a running track: the tempo is slow enough to stop you bursting a gut yet it still rocks hard enough to mean that the potential disappintment at not making it through to horse whinnies at the end might just outweigh the desire to fall on your face and be sick. I didn't make it to the whinnying this time. Next time, Demis, I promise.