Jog FM, a valuable resource

If you are anything like me music is essential when working out. I wish I could be those people who have ultimate focus and can run for hours with no music, or train at the gym with nothing to distract but alas, I am not. I need blood pumping, toe tapping, booty shaking music to get me going during my workout. One of my favorite features of the Nike+ running app is the power song button. Blasting whatever is my anthem at the moment to get me through a difficult part of my run. While a lot of purists look at music as distracting you from your workout instead of focusing you on it, I disagree. Sure plowing away on the treadmill for 3 hours watching Lord of the Rings wasn't my best workout ever, I think my walking pace was 4 tops, I still stand by music as a tool for your workout. For example, Jog FM, a website and now phone app that allows you to choose music based on beats per minute and for pace. It is magical. 

My last run was completed at an 11:13 average pace. I am currently making my way through training with a couch to 10k (review coming soon) so this was an 11:13 pace with walking intervals thrown in. To give you idea of paces; my recent pace has been about 12:43, my fastest race pace was 9:15, most fast walkers walk a 15 min mile, average running speed for most runners is 9-12 minutes with competitive runners running even faster. The current world record for the mile is 3:43. I am not winning a gold medal anytime soon but I was very pleased with my recent pace. I also realized while playing around on Jog FM that a lot of my music is in the 9-11 min mile pace. I completely attribute my faster run time to the music. I think it does make a difference. 

So now to the nitty gritty. Jog FM is a free site and app they helps you compile playlists to maximize your workout. Don't let the name fool you they have playlists for running, walking and cycling. While accessing the website is free, the songs are not but they are iphone and android friendly, offering links to both itunes and amazon mp3. They also let you listen to a song before you decide to buy it, which I always love, there is nothing worse than buying a song you have never heard before and it being super bad! Even though you can look up songs based on pace, they also have a link to playlists made by members. I love this because a lot of them have themes. Besides the songs and playlists there is also a way to map routes, very similar to Nike+ and map my run and just as accurate. 

Signing up is easy, you can create an account or just use your facebook or twitter log in. Signing up isn't necessary however, it is only needed to create and save playlists and routes. Once you have created an account you can also find people but you have to have their username or email address to find them. I like this feature because I love to see what my friends are running to and what is hot. I just wish it was easier to find people. 

So give this site a try, keep your playlist fresh. Music is a great motivator. I always put new songs on my playlist at night to get me pumped to listen in the morning during my workout. With 2 small kiddos I rarely get to listen to anything outside of itsy bitsy spider or Chipmunk versions of songs so my playlist is a sanctuary and Jog FM makes it even more functional. You can check them out here. If you join and want to see my playlist you can find me here!

My next goal is to create playlists by pace and put them on my phone. So have an 8 min, 9min and 10 min pace so I can work on decreasing my pace times!

Train hard, Minus your 46!