Make Your Own Kind of Music, 2009 Remix

Back in September of 2007, I posted instructions on how to set up a playlist of your own music to go along with C25k. Amazingly, that blog entry, Make Your Own Kind of Music, continues to get comments some two years later. Time and technology march on, however, and in the last two years I've seen other (and better) ways to accomplish what I described back then. At this point, I pretty much would recommend my instructions only to masochists. There are easier ways, now, to accomplish the same result. Here are a few:


PODCASTS AND MP3s:

• Robert Ullrey's Podcast - This is the C25k podcast I used my first time through C25k. It works flawlessly, so long as you share Robert's taste in techno music. There's one song that actually made its way into regular rotation on my iPod ("Operator," by dePreslys), but many others ("My Love is Your Love, and Your Love is Mine" or whatever it is called), still haunt my nightmares.

• djsteveboy's Podrunner: Intervals provides free, varied-BPM workout music mixes for runners, joggers, and power walkers at all levels, designed to build endurance and improve overall conditioning. The mixes include audio cues that prompt you when to move from walking to running and vice versa.

• Take a trip Inside the Mind of Suze and download her C25k music, featuring audio cues. Her music runs the gamut from hip-hop to R&B to teen to 80's and 90's.

• Go Nicole Yourself - Nicole put together a collection of commercial music for each of the days of C25k and has made it available for public download. As she notes, "Should you like the music, go buy the albums off of itunes, emusic.com or amazon.com. Support artists and musicians!"

• A Question of Perspective - Elisa DelBonis made and posted some mixes for her own personal use while going through C25k. Her mix features commercial music and verbal cues, so as she says "If you *borrow* them you do so knowing you didn’t purchase the music embedded in them. (Or maybe you did and we have the same taste in music… in which case you’re in the clear.)" Check out her page for playlists. It's pop/dance/good stuff you already know that you can sing along to.

• Christian Indie Tracks - Christ-centered music from independent artists, divided into downloads for weeks designed to correspond to the weeks of C25k.

• Mindplunge - As of this writing it is not yet in existence, but Richard Lemon looks to be in the process of making his own C25k podcast. Check back later on his progress.

HARDWARE-DEPENDENT (e.g. Stuff for iPhones):

• C25k - This is an app for iPhones and iPod Touches. It does not itself feature music, but it lets you use your own iTunes playlist in the background while in the foreground the app guides you through each week of C25k, giving you audio prompts every time you need to change from running to walking according to the plan. It can be configured to post your progress to Facebook and/or Twitter. The page I've linked here opens AppBeacon, rather than launching iTunes. If you want the direct link to the app on iTunes, it's here.

• Couch to 5k - This, like the C25k app above, is a C25k app for iPhones and iPod Touches. It does not itself feature music, but it lets you use your own iTunes playlist in the background while in the foreground the app guides you through each week of C25k, giving you audio prompts every time you need to change from running to walking according to the plan.

• Get Running - Like C25kapp and Couch to 5k, this is just for iPhones and iPod Touches. I think it is far superior to either of its competitors, so if you are looking for an app specifically tailored to C25k this would be the one to get. (It doesn't do all of the things that a more fully-featured general running app, like RunKeeper, does. But what it does, it does VERY well).

• C25k app for Android - What's that you say, you don't have an iPhone or iPod Touch? But you have a phone that uses Android? This app appears to do the same thing as the two above, only for Android.

• RunKeeper - I use, and love, RunKeeper Pro. I've posted about its benefits elsewhere on my blog. It is an iPhone app that maps your running, allows for the playing of music from your playlist, superimposes clear-as-a-bell audio cues that can be customized for whatever series of intervals you are running, keeps a historical record of your runs, supports posting your workouts to the major social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, etc), charts your run on an editable map, and so much more.

• Nike+ - Available in nano and iPhone 3GS versions. I used the iPod nano version for a while, a few years back, but the battery in the little shoe transmitter died and it is not user-replaceable. It is still attached to the laces of my shoe, silently waiting for me to replace it or just throw it away already. When it was working, it was pretty nice. It overlays training information on top of your playlist. Famous athletes even congratulate you at the end of your runs.

SERVICES:

• JogTunes - JogTunes is a site dedicated to helping runners find music that matches their running paces. It boasts a vast selection of music all determined and categorized by style and BPM.

• fitMusic - similar to JogTunes, fitMusic provides "fresh, free, fitness music" suitable for running.

• run2rhythm - similar to JogTunes or fitMusic, run2rhythm provides "specially composed running music."

• C25k.com has a forum featuring a Podcasts, Music and More sub-forum. It's worth checking out.

MAKE YOUR OWN:

• Audacity - Audacity is a free program for editing MP3 and WAV files. Here's a great page of step-by-step instructions to create a mix featuring your own music coupled with interval cues. As for the interval cues, you might try checking out sbellcheck, which provides no music track, only audio cues of when to run and when to walk for each week. The whole course is also available for download as an MP3.

Finally...

• "Make Your Own Kind of Music" - If you DO want to tinker with the Visual Basic scripts and follow the 2007 "Make Your Own Kind of Music" instructions, they do still work. In fact, they're NEW and IMPROVED, thanks to Scott Gould. Scott recently took it upon himself to update and overhaul the VB script, and he was kind enough to share his results. His new version of the script allows for an initial playlist of any size. It starts adding songs to the running playlist from a random location, randomly selecting a start song from the playlist so that you don't have to hear the same music again and again. If the start song is at the end of the list then it loops back to the start of the playlist. The updated script can be found HERE. If you prefer the original script for some reason, it can still be found back at the original post, or directly HERE. Once again, I'd like to acknowledge Jeff Welch, the original author of the script.

Make Your Own Kind of Music

I wrote this entry in September of 2007. The instructions still work, but you might want to check out this more recent post that gives some easier alternatives. It also contains a link to a new-and-improved version of the Visual Basic script mentioned below. -- Dan, 7/26/09

Today's blog entry is a bit different. I'm not going to post about my Couch to 5k run for Week 6 Day 3 (it went well. No spiders or snails to dodge, no sprinklers to avoid - what more could I ask for?).

Instead, I've decided to post some detailed instructions that explain how to make your very own C25k running music, including interval notifications. I'll boil it down to two simple steps. (Each step has 37 parts). Note that you can do either step, or both steps. If you do step one alone, then you'll wind up with a playlist of good running music. If you do step two alone, then you'll wind up with a playlist of maybe-good running music that contains interval reminders. If you do steps one and two together, you'll wind up with a playlist of good running music that contains interval reminders.

The steps, in brief:

1. Create a playlist on iTunes that consists just of the running music that you want. You can make this a regular old playlist, if you like, but why not mix things up and make it a "smart" playlist instead? Below I explain how to do that.

2. Add interval notifications to your playlist. You'll have to make a different playlist for each week of C25k, because the intervals change each week (and in weeks 5 and 6 they change by the day, too). If you are lazy, and like Robert Ullrey's choice of techno-heavy music selections, then use his podcast and your work is done. I suggest that you use his podcast, but when week 6 rolls around and you start doing the uninterrupted runs (and thereafter, continuing on after "graduation"), ditch his music and use the method described below.

Okay - here we go with the more detailed instructions:

A. HOW TO CREATE A SMART PLAYLIST USING iTUNES:

(These instructions created for Windows iTunes version 7.3.2.6)

1. From the File menu, choose "New Smart Playlist" (Cntrl-Alt-N).

2. Select the tick box up top, to say "match ALL of the following rules"

3. Down below, select "Limit to 25 items selected by RANDOM" (or more, or less, depending upon how long you want your list to be).
4. Select "Match only checked items"
5. Select "Live Updating"
6. Now add your conditions, to indicate to iTunes which songs in your library should be chosen. I have the following conditions, but your mileage and taste may vary:

• Playlist is NOT Slow Songs (This, for me, is key. I have a separate non-smart playlist called Slow Songs. If I hear a song from my list that I think is not suitable running music, I put it in the Slow Songs playlist. iTunes will exclude any songs found on the Slow Songs playlist when randomly selecting songs for my Smart Jogging playlist).
• My Rating is ***** (Common sense reminder: If you are going to use ratings (you should), you need to actually rate your songs. If you don't rate anything, but you require your smart playlist to include only four- and five-star songs, you'll get a playlist with nothing on it).
  
• Podcast is FALSE
• Kind IS NOT Audible File
• Genre IS NOT Audiobook
• Genre IS NOT Children's Music
• Genre IS NOT Easy Listening
• Genre IS NOT Jazz
• Genre IS NOT Spoken Word
• Genre IS NOT Inspirational
• Genre IS NOT A Capella

I have a couple of others (like Artist IS NOT Yanni) that I use, as well. But who knows - maybe you love running to Yanni. More power to you.

7. Give your new Smart Playlist a title. I use "Smart Jogging"


B. ADD INTERVALS TO YOUR NEW RUNNING PLAYLIST

Taking the following steps will add audible "DING" chimes within your new smart playlist (or any ol' dumb playlist, for that matter), in the intervals you specify. For example, I wanted to prepare an interval playlist for a 25 minute run with a 5 minute warmup walk at the beginning and a 5 minute cooldown walk at the end. To do so, I created a script with intervals of 5, 12.5, 7.5, 4, 1, 5. This puts an audible DING after the first five minutes, after 12.5 minutes (the half-way point of the run), another 7.5 minutes later (20 minutes into the run) to signify there are five minutes remaining, 4 minutes after that (to signify one minute remaining), one minute after that (to signify that the run is done and the cooldown walk should begin) and finally 5 minutes after that, to signify the end of the cooldown walk and workout. I take no credit for making the script that does this - all credit goes to Jeff Welch. His Team in Training page is where I found the instructions that follow with regard to the DING intervals. Pay his site a visit and follow the instructions on it to set up the iTunes DING script. As per his instructions:

1. Download his script file. (Or, download Scott Gould's improved version. Scott improved the script to allow for an initial playlist of any size. The improved version starts adding songs to the running playlist from a random location, randomly selecting a start song from the playlist so that you don't have to hear the same music again and again. If the start song is at the end of the list then it loops back to the start of the playlist. - Dan, 7/26/09)
   
2. Unzip to your desktop.
3. Add the "Ding.mp3" sound file to iTunes.
4. Create a playlist that you want to use (or select an existing one, like the smart playlist you created following the guidelines listed above).
   
5. Inside the "iTunes Runners Playlist" double click the "CreateRunnersPlayList.vbs"
6. Give it the name of the playlist you just created.
7. Give it the pattern you desire.

Example, for a 25 minute run with a 5 minute walk bookending either side:

5,12.5,7.5,4,1,5

Example, for week 1 of C25k, which consists of a 5 minute walk, 8 repetitions of 60 seconds of running and 90 seconds of walking, and then a 5 minute cooldown walk:

5,1,1.5,1,1.5,1,1.5,1,1.5,1,1.5,1,1.5,1,1.5,1,1.5,5

After running his script, you'll have a new playlist called *Smart Jogging (assuming the playlist you were working from was called Smart Jogging).

With both of the above examples, five minutes into the playlist the song then playing will stop, you'll hear a DING, and the next song on your playlist will begin playing.

Of course, all of these dings are ridiculously hard to keep track of as you are running. So I took it a step further, and I have created spoken voice prompts to accompany each ding. These short spoken MP3s can be manually added to your playlist after each DING Jeff's script inserts. The spoken MP3s say things like "5 minutes remaining", "half-way point", "begin your cooldown walk", "one minute left," etc. A much easier approach would simply be to use the Nike+ system, but Nike+ works only with an iPod nano, and these instructions don't require a nano (or even an iPod for that matter - any MP3 player will do).

The spoken-voice files I made are:

BEGIN WARMUP WALK - "Begin your warmup walk now"
WARMUP OVER - "Your warmup walk is over"
HALFWAY POINT - "Half-way there"
5 MINS LEFT - "Five minutes remaining"
1 MIN LEFT - "One minute remaining"
BEGIN COOLDOWN - "Begin your cooldown walk"
DONE - "All done - congratulations"

Plus a few more generic ones:

BEGIN WALKING - "Begin walking now"
STOP WALKING - "Stop walking now"
BEGIN RUN - "Begin your run now"
STOP RUNNING - "Stop running now"

You can download them HERE. Sorry about the funky computerized voice. My microphone wasn't working well, so I used a text-to-speech synthesizer. It sounds better than Stephen Hawking, and worse than HAL. It is fine for my purposes. Hopefully, for yours too. I actually kind of like it.

Next, import these spoken cues (or make your own, if you don't like mine) into iTunes. Import them by selecting "Add File to Library..." (Cntrl+O) from the File menu of iTunes. There are 11 voice files, plus the DING file you previously added. Once you've imported them into your library, select and drag them over to your *Smart Jogging playlist.

Once you have them in your *Smart Jogging playlist (they'll all be down at the bottom), just drag each one to put it after the appropriate DING. See the picture below for an example of how I have my 25 minute run set up.

Note that the files are of very short duration, just a few seconds each. If you have "crossfade playback" enabled in your iTunes preferences you may find that they bleed together a bit too much for your liking. Adjust to taste. I turned off crossfade playback entirely, and that seems to work best for me.

Please be aware that Jeff's script changes the stop time of some of the songs on your playlist. If your first two songs have play times of 2:30 minutes and 2:40 minutes and you've specified your first interval to last for 5 minutes, for example, then the second song will be cut 10 seconds short so the DING can play at the 5 minute mark, and then the next song will begin. To reclaim your lost 10 seconds, you need to run the second script that he included in his file. It sets things back. Before running it (he calls it UndoCreateRunnersPlaylist, and it is the second script he included in his zip archive), first delete the spoken voice prompts you added to the playlist. Also, be aware that the script will work on the entire playlist you choose - so if you have a playlist that is 60 minutes long, and your script calls for 35 minutes worth of intervals, it will run (almost) two times down the list.

If things get messed up, or for some reason his undo script doesn't work right for you, you can always manually reset the stop times of any affected songs. Do so by (1) right-clicking on the song; (2) select Get Info...; (3) click "Options"; (4) untick the "stop-time" box.

Also, it should go without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that you should use caution before unzipping any files and/or running any visual basic scripts. I've looked at Jeff's script and it is perfectly innocuous, and his zip file and mine are virus free. However, you can never be too careful. Use your virus scanner of choice, just to be on the safe side. I cannot be held responsible if his script causes a llama to eat your monitor, or something else unexpected along similar lines.

If you take the time to set this up, and you like it, please let me know by commenting on this blog entry!