Normally I leave the headphones at home, but every once in a while I want to put the tunes in and go out for a nice progression or tempo run. I don’t want to be talked to, I want to run. Fast.

For that, I need music that gets my heart going. For me, that music is Drum and Bass for two reasons:

1. DnB is close to my running cadence. I try to run with a cadence of 90+ (90 left foot steps per minute, 180bmp). Drum and Bass is often around 175bmp.
2. DnB is high energy and the songs have a building quality to them.
3. Ok, one more… I enjoy listening to it.

The problem was that 175bpm is not 180bpm. The solution was some software called djay. It allows me to adjust the tempo of songs and create mixes. These mixes are absolutely awesome and have given me great results.

As an example, below is a 1 hour mix that starts at a 92 steps-per-minute cadence and progresses to a 94 steps-per-minute cadence. If you like it, I suggest you buy some DnB from iTunes and use djay to create your own mixes. I have several of these that I have made. Some are at different cadences, some are longer, etc.

Here is the mix on soundcloud:

If you want to buy some music like this, I highly recommend Hospitality: Summer Drum & Bass 2012. I am making a new 2 hour mix from that album for myself today. The album includes 30 songs for only $11.99. The tunes are high-energy, positive, and melodically interesting. I will probably make a two hour mix for the longer runs.

If you want to start doing cadence training with mixes like I do, I recommend creating a playlist with a warmup and cool down song on either side of the mix. That way you can have an easy transition from stretch to run to stretch.

When you run with music, what do you run to?

Note to Algoriddim, makers of djay: I would love it if I could set a BPM in the mobile app and have it match all songs in a playlist to that setting. Then I could just use the mobile app for my runs and not have to create new mixes ahead of time.