Why do people insist they 'CANNOT' run without headphones..?

As someone who ran with music for years, you just get used to it and it becomes a crutch. Two summers ago I forced myself to stop completely aND now i can't run with music.

And now I must ask, are you happier running without? I only ask because I love all the sounds of running -- focusing on cadence, breathing, sounds around you..

I just feel that being more aware of your body/surroundings makes the experience much better.

They are mentally weak and you are far superior. Congratulations.

Dumbfounded wrote:

This is a question that has been bothering me. I am a collegiate runner (not that it matters, just a statement), and there are a few kids on my team who when running on their own, even just 5 miles, tell me they cannot run without headphones because they get bored or lose focus. One even goes as far as saying that being alone with their thoughts that long makes them go crazy and their run goes to sh*t.

Am I insane in thinking that people are simply mentally weak if the above it true? You honestly can't just focus on a run, especially when running at the collegiate level, for less than an hour?

Please rip me apart if I am out of line on this.

If the physical activity you are doing is not physically required for you to live and you are not having fun then you are doing the wrong activity. There's always another physical activity that a person can do that won't require a distraction.

Yea running without music is now more peaceful. Listening to my feet , breathing . Being in tune with myself is more comforting and enjoyable than music on the run. Plus when I do hard workouts I can focus better and work on mental toughness easier where music would make me zone out almost.

Personally I don't run with headphones outside because it can be very dangerous. I know I am being Mr. Safety here, but it seems silly to purposely take away one of your senses when there are so many potential dangerous situations that could occur.

I know lots of people (mostly recreational runners) who say the same thing. My teammates on my college team don't run with music because there is almost always someone else to run with.

Personally I can't stand running with music, it makes me subconsciously change my cadence to match that of the song. I also prefer to hear the "natural sounds" around me

I can understand those that enjoy running with music even though running without is plenty enjoyable. I really hate headphones though, so that is a big reason why I never run while listening to music.

I suppose if carrying a loud enough speaker was convenient...

My headphones fall out all the time; wish I could run with music.

ewe nguyen wrote:

They are mentally weak and you are far superior. Congratulations.

Lol. This reminds me of a post I read on here after a long pointless argument. One poster finally said something like you're right, your strong argument has finally persuaded me such that my opinion exactly matches yours.

They say they cannot run without headphones when they mean they don't WANT to run without headphones.

I do every run on my own with headphones. I do some races with headphones and others without. In comparison to listening to my breathing, other peoples breathing, the "sounds of nature" or the music I enjoy listening to, I will always choose music.

What generally happens is that when I am focused on a particular part of a run, I probably couldn't tell you what song was playing on my ipod, but at other times I enjoy the distraction of the music as my run becomes commonplace and uninteresting.

Dumbfounded wrote:

This is a question that has been bothering me. I am a collegiate runner (not that it matters, just a statement), and there are a few kids on my team who when running on their own, even just 5 miles, tell me they cannot run without headphones because they get bored or lose focus. One even goes as far as saying that being alone with their thoughts that long makes them go crazy and their run goes to sh*t.

Am I insane in thinking that people are simply mentally weak if the above it true? You honestly can't just focus on a run, especially when running at the collegiate level, for less than an hour?

Please rip me apart if I am out of line on this.

I don't run with music but I have tried it a couple times, and let me tell you, if you pick the right song you can do amazing things. I did a couple mile time trials completely alone last year with songs that helped me get more mad than I already was and I ran way faster than I thought I was capable of. Of course this may have been due to me already being unreasonably angry, but I like to think of the music as fuel. But yeah I could never regularly run with music. It would be weird.

They don't.

Being able to listen to music while running is fairly new for me. I hated the bulky walkmans and discmans of the 90's. The no track skipping feature never worked, and there was never a comfortable way to wear them. Listening to the radio was a poor option, because there were always ads or poor reception. I didn't start running with music consistently until getting an ipod shuffle in 2008.

For most easy or long runs, I enjoy listening to music. It is not a distraction. I keep the volume down; so I am aware of the outside world. My routes are mainly on open riverside paths. For most of my day I am subjected to the relentless noise of the city, so it is nice to have an uninterrupted hour of music I want to hear. Music doesn't turn off my brain, and even if I run without headphones there is a song in my head. I can't listen to an audiobook, or anyone talking, on a run because that is distracting.

I don't wear headphones for racing or hard workouts, but I don't think people do are weak.

I love passing by live music or even recorded music while I am running--either in a race or on a training run--but I find the headphone thing to be both disturbing and dangerous. Several times while driving I have nearly run over idiots who ran (or biked) across a road way, not in a crosswalk, totally oblivious that they were risking their life (and terrible grief for the person who would hit them). For me so much of running is a form of intense concentration, a time to focus upon the act of running. Music from headphones just seems to take me out of my body, to lessen that focus. I respect that this could be different for others. Another thing about head phones that bothers me is how anti-social they are. I like saying hi to people, or nodding to a stranger. It seems sort of sad to me when I pass drones with headphones on who never acknowledge other people. Granted, not everyone who uses headphones behaves this way, but most do. And then there is my friend who I waited two hours to cheer on at Boston, who just ran right past me, wearing head phones, unable to hear me calling her name. Grrrrrr.

I ran without headphones for a long time then I gave them a shot for a bit. I've been sans headphones for years now and decided to give them another try a couple weeks ago on the treadmill. I nearly fell over. #neverforget

I don't like running near sexy women. It ruins the purity of running.

I usually turned around the instant i saw them.

Nowadays I just run on a treadmill in front of a white wall. I LOVE running.

WhitePony wrote:

Personally I don't run with headphones outside because it can be very dangerous. I know I am being Mr. Safety here, but it seems silly to purposely take away one of your senses when there are so many potential dangerous situations that could occur.

Me too. I'm old, and when I started running there was no decent technology for running with headphones. I have never been able to get used to it. All of my running is outdoors and at least partly on roads shared with cars, and not having full use of my sense of hearing just feels too dangerous.

Ahahab wrote:

I don't like running near sexy women. It ruins the purity of running.

I usually turned around the instant i saw them.

Nowadays I just run on a treadmill in front of a white wall. I LOVE running.

I'm stealing that to use in the next "headphones are inferior" thread.