Running to books on tape

I have concluded that running to books on tape, while enjoyable, is not the best way to zoom along. Turns out that as riveting as Harry Potter may be, he just doesn't have the same beat that, say, Gaslight Anthem does. And that beat does matter! Who knew? Well, lots of people, so perhaps I should say "who in this room I'm in as I'm typing this knew?" and then I can answer "nobody!" But in any case, you can actually see a difference in performance. I typically go 30 seconds per mile slower when I've got a book on tape going. Probably helps explain a bit of why my runs stayed so slow last training cycle. Of course, another part was that I was feeling tired and lazy, so chose to listen to books on tape so I wouldn't have to notice the run as much. Bit of a chicken-egg thing there. But for future reference, if your goal at all involves speed, stick to music. If you just want to finish a long run and truly don't care how long it takes, grab a book on tape. Here endeth the lesson.