In a continued quest to explore points of interaction between the music and fitness industries, I ran the DC Rock N Roll half marathon during my spring break. It was pouring rain, but still 15,000 runners showed up in downtown DC at the start line. I remember them blasting, “Bang Bang” by Jessie J right when my corral started, and then every 3 miles throughout the city there was a stage set up with a band playing. Good theoretical concept but could have been done a million times better. I think there should have been music playing throughout and I think the bands should only be allowed to play music at a certain BPM so that we can run to their tempo and high energy. I think a huge drum troupe would have been really sick too. I think it needed to have been created such that the music augmented the running experience, instead of just being a sort of random add-on.

The hills on this run killed me but running with my homies from Hong Kong University as well as remembering so many amazing musical moments from college were the highlights.