Since high school, I’ve run to stay fit. At that time it was more just because we were forced to run in gym class but I liked it all the same. One thing I noticed quickly was music changed the pace of my running.
Getting into a good fast song, I would pick up my running tempo. Coming around to a slower song, I would slow my running down a bit. But only to a point, if an insane drum and bass song came on, there’s no way I could match that kind of temp and for slow songs, well, they just didn’t make it onto my running playlists at all.
The problem is trying to find a good pace. It’s not a good running pace if you’re always changing it. One song you’re fast, one song you’re slow. It might be good for fast and slow intervals but long pace runs, the music is going to wear you out.
I’ve wondered if I decide what pace to run, I could go out and find all the music and sort it by it’s tempo and just pick which speed of music I wanted to run to that day. This guy spent the time doing that and it’s a huge amount of work. I have my “new music processes” set up so that it’s as little work as possible. I wasn’t going to do the work manually so I thought I was just going have to suffer through different speed music on my runs.
But as with everything else these days, “there’s an app for that!”
TrailMix Pro
TrailMix is an iOS app for running (they’re working on an android version) that changes the tempo of your music to match your running tempo. You can also use it for walking.
iPhones and iPods have a gadget in them that’s called an accelerometer which detects movement kind of like a pedometer. Every time you step down while running, the phone picks that up. With this, it knows your cadence or how many times you step to the ground each minute. Throw in some other cool technology that allows them to change the tempo of a song without distorting the pitch and you’ve got an app that plays music at exactly the tempo you are running at.
Now you can go for a run and listen to music at the same pace you are running at, the app will match it up. You can also use the Cruise Control feature and set the tempo or beats per minute manually and then run to that. If you are aiming for a certain tempo and would like to run that tempo the whole way, then you can set it and forget it. Some runners will run to a digital metronome of constant beeps in their headphones so they know what to match with their running speed. Metronomes are the things that go tick tick tick so music players can stay on time. I can’t imagine what running with a constant beeping in your head would be like. I much prefer music!
Free version vs Pro
What’s in the Pro version that’s not in the free version?
Magic Shuffle – Automagically picks the best songs for your pace
Cruise Control – You can lock in a pace for a consistent workout, no changing pace to match your run, you have to match the music!
Enhanced stats – get more stats, time spent moving and average pace
Unlimited playlist capacity – 20 randomly selected songs from each playlist are available, all songs are available in the Pro version
No Ads – you can also disable Kiip rewards
Download free TrailMix from the App Store
Download TrailMix Pro from the App Store
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Happy Running,
– Ross