Keeping at it

Tuesday December 15th. I stepped it up a little bit today, running 3.28 miles at 11'06" per mile. last Wednesday it was 11'33" per mile. I'm hoping to run at least once more this week and another 2 runs next week. Baby steps.

Coalesce- Absent in Death. Starts with just a guitar and builds into a heavy plodding sludge. Perfect run starter. Who would of thought that Coalesce would release 2 great records after 10 off?

Cult of Luna- Watchtower. Another plodding slab of heavy. This dude has such a harsh voice.

Struck by Lightning- Collection of Teeth. This sounds like something that he would of done back when he was in Mouth of the Architect. Held out chords with a pretty piano lead part. Doesn't really fit with the Mastodon feel that the rest of the record has but it's a good jam none-the-less.

Young Widows- Old Skin. RIFFS!

Mastodon- Ole' Nessie. More RIFFS. Just played a bit slower. Mastodons first 2 LPs are unfuckwithable.

Down- Lifer. Thought I'd give this a second go. Sweet southern fried sabbath riffage. This really satisfied my inner 15 year old Pantera fan.

sithmic

Metallica- Blackened. They need to break up because they will NEVER even come close to replicating the first 4. Break up.

Shrinebuilder- The Architect. While there are some seismicly heavy parts this whole thing just sounds a bit disjointed.

Ugh

Over October and the early part of November I was running maybe once every week. Not good. Then for about for weeks I stopped completely. Even worse. Worse still since my half marathon I have gained 5 to 10 pounds. Ugh!

Well, on Wednesday December 9th I went out for a short run (2.64 miles). For my mix I kept it slow and stoner. I wanted to have a nice relaxed pace as a warm up to getting back into full training. The day wasn't too cold and I felt really good the rest of the day.

Om- Cremation Gant 1. This band belongs in a temple surrounded by stoned monks. Their records our so meditative and soothing. There is a part with a flute in it on the new record that I have been listening to repeatedly, so sweet.

Across Tundras- ?. Not sure what this song is called but it is off "Heroes of the Fathomless Vallys". Played with these dudes the day before thanksgiving and they stayed at our place for turkeyday. Great dudes, sweet jams, best dogs.

Down- Jail. So I picked the unmetal song on the Down's NOLA. It's hard to get going to a flang drenched acoustic ballad.

Wino- Gods, Frauds, Neocons and Damagogues. Another miss. Noise and GW samples.

Converge- Worms Will Feed. This is more like it. This has a nice mid tempo beat with screech and sung back and forth vocals. This record is sick from start to finish.

Obscura- Universe Momentum. This is not slow. I just started listening to this band so i wanted to run to it. Super technical death metal with some awesome (although very high in the mix) basslines. Again, great record.

Fight Amp- Faith in Man. The fact that this is only half the band from 2007's Hungry for Nothing really shows through. This record is pretty boring and at times sounds flat out amateur, especially in the vocals.

Back in the Saddle

It's been almost three weeks since the half marathon and I've been LAZY! On Wednesday october 7th I went out for my first run since the race. I did about three and a half miles in forty plus minutes. Nice and slow. I had Neurosis's "The Eye of Every Storm" to keep my pace easy. It is an amzing record to just zone out to for relaxed paced runs. I imagione this record is what would happen if Leonard Cohen decided to try his hand at making a doom album. It may not be the band's most brutal stuff but it's sublty and songwriting make up for what it lacks in bone crushing riffs. Definately an overlooked record.

2:18:33

Sorry for the inactivity. So, on September the 20th 2009 I ran the The ING Philadelphia Distance Run. 13.1 miles in 2 hours 18 minutes and 33 seconds. I finished 29.o2 minutes faster than last year and 11.27 minutes faster than my goal. On Sunday I woke up to a crisp early fall morning, perfect for running over a long distance. I arrived at the race at around 7:30 a.m., found my corral and waited. And waited. After a little time past the crowd move up a bit and then we waited some more. Around 8:05 we had made our way up to the starting line and we made our start. I kept a pretty steady pace and just didn't lose steam or get tired, although near the end when I turned on the speed I was probably running on adrenaline. Here is my list, it is long.

Falling Unknown - Neurosis

Courage - Manowar

As The Sun Sets - There Were Wires

Through Silver In Blood - Neurosis

Space Lord - Monster Magnet

Widowmaker - Struck By Lightning

Dio - Rainbow in the Dark

Run to the Hills - Iron Maiden

War, Wisdom and Rhyme - Baroness

Victim Iced - The Haunted

Cold - At the Gates

Time As Surrogate Religion - Buried Inside

A National Acrobat - Black Sabbath

Across The Shields - Torche

Lack Of All Most Everything - Eyehategod

Black Metal - Venom

Crawl of Time - Pig Destroyer

Whore Out The Hole - Gunna Vahm

Ace of Spades - Motörhead

A Shogun Named Marcus - Clutch

Sunday Driver - Cable

A Paradox With Flies - Darkest Hour

43% Burnt - The Dillinger Escape Plan

Gossamer - Tombs

Day Nineteen: Fucking Viva - Trap Them

Fucking Hostile - Pantera

Blood and Thunder - Mastodon

Raining Blood - Slayer

battery - Metallica

Biotech Is Godzilla - Sepultura

Riding on the Wind - Judas Priest

Hollow - Integrity

Deliverance - Cult Of Luna

Toilet Paper And Leotards - American Heritage

A Beautiful Corpse - Mouth of the Architect

13.1 The Number of the Beast

Sunday September 20th. I just ran The ING Distance Run in approximately 2'23". An accurate time,playlist and photos will be posted soon, but for now it's off to the bar! Keep it evil.

Day 20/ The Big Day

Ran 4 miles on tuesday to a terrible noise filled playlist that I deleted before I could Post. Tomorrow is the ING DIstance Run. My mix is sweet and I'm focused and ready. See you all tomorrow.

Day 19

Sunday September 13th. 8.11 miles at a 10'36" pace. I'm pretty please with that considering I felt like falling over most of the time and the ipod ran out of juice at about 3.5 miles so I was left alone with my thoughts. It is now 7 until the ING distance run and I'm feeling pretty confident. Here is what I got up to on my mix:

1. Mono- Silent Flights, Sleeping Dawn

2. Anodyne- Cities in the Plain

3. Coalesce- What Happens on the Road Always Comes Home

4. Corn on Macabre- Pteradactyl Shutdown

5. Cave In- Until Your Heart Stops

6. Deadguy- Extremist

7. Orchid- NJ vs. Valhalla

8. Tusk- Life's Denial

9. Dillinger Escape Plan- Jim Fear. The Ipod crapped out during this one. Boo!

Day 18

Thursday September 10th. Had a busy week so I didn't get out as much as I would have liked to but i went out on yesterday and logged 3.33 miles at a pace of 9 minutes 38 seconds per mile. I felt fast. I listened to the new Tombs' record, "Winter Hours". This is definitely my favorite record of the year so far. It is such a good mix of black metal, hardcore and ambient drone. There are also some really good driving rhythms that are really helpful while trying to push myself to run faster.

Day 17

Sunday September 5th. Had some trouble with the Nike+ at the beginning, turns out it was on walk so I had to reset it and map out the first part of my run (.88 mile). Then I got it working and it ended up at 6.66 (!) miles, how serendipitous. My pace improved to 10 min 40 seconds per mile so I'm pretty excited!

1. Buried Inside- Time As Commodity

2. Mastodon- Aqua Dementia

3. Clutch- Escape From The Prison Planet

4. Engineer- Heavy Drag

5. Floor- Assassin

6. Harvey Milk- Go Back To France

7. High On Fire- Silver Black

8. Iconoclast- In Adam's Fall

9. Melt-Banana- Mind Thief

10. Kreator- Carrion

11. Mind Eraser- Manhood

12. Most Precious Blood- Two men enter, one man leaves

13. Neurosis- Training

14. Pig Destroyer- Crippled Horses

15. React- React's Anti-Heroin Song

16. Boysetsfire- After The Eulogy

17. Tombs- Filled With Secrets

18. Woe- I See No Civilization

19. The Wolves (Two)

20. Entombed- Severe Burns 4:01

21. Metallica- One

22. Celebrity Murders- Suddenly:Vermin

23. Coldworker- A Custom-Made Hell

24. Mouth Of The Architect- No One Wished To Settle Here

Day 16

Thursday September 3rd. The ING Distance run is just 17 days away. I hope I'm ready! I ran 4.41 averaging about 11:34 minutes per mile. I put in some more rock with my metal today and I don't have enough time to talk about each song today but here is what I was listening to:

1. Isis- Grinning.

2. City of Ships- March of Slaves.

3. Danzig- Mother.

4. Coalesce- Heartbreaker

5. Turbonegro- Don't Say Motherfucker, Motherfucker.

6. Integrity- Abaraxis Annihilation. "The lamb and the goat have fused as one"

7.Black Sabbath- Killing Yourself to Live.

8. Envy- Shield of Selfishness.

9. Pelican- GW.

10. Gifts from Enola- Trieste.

Day 15

Monday August 31st. Ran 3 miles today with my new nike+ Sportsband courtesy of Up To Speed racing team. I listened to Neurosis "Given to the Rising". Above is my ghetto version of a shoe pouch. I made it from a ziplock bag and packing tape. American ingenuity!

Day 14

Saturday August 29th. I ran 6.95 miles in one hour and twenty minutes. I'm going to need to speed up a bit more if I want to beat my 2:47 from last years Philly Distance Run. Here's the list:

1. Braveyoung- Gia. A long, drawn out, mainly instrumental track with lots of build ups and crashing drums. Really nice warm up.

2. Trap Them- Fucking Viva. Hell Yeah! This is a total anthem.

3. Mastodon- March of the Fire Ants. Great, not as adrenaline pumping as Blood & Thunder, but awesome none the less.

4. Torche- Mentor. Always a good band to run to.

5. There Were Wires- Fat with Glasses. The title is very anti running but it's nice and fast.

6. Slayer- Raining Blood. I had to resist the urge to tear down the path and clobber other runners.

7. Neurosis- Eye. This added good balance to the faster stuff. I ran up the art museum steps to this. I felt like a conquering army storming a castle.

8. Kylesa- Scapegoat. Sweet double drummer intro.

9. Integrity- Hollow. I pushed it and went all out sprint during this song. I had a nice long straight away on the Ben Franklin Parkway and couldn't help myself. I hadn't heard this song in a couple of years and it just made me go fast as I could. Human Furnace's Vocal during this song make it so evil.

10. The Haunted- Bury your dead. Another one i hadn'e heard in a while. I forgot how awesome they were.

11. Samothrace- Cruel Awake. This was supposed to end my run but I felt like I more in me so i listen to the new Patton Oswald stand up CD for 9 tracks or so. It is really funny.

Day 13

Thursday August 27th. 3.9 miles today. I ran fairly slowly today. Just trying to keep up my training and log some miles. I wasn't trying to push too hard or any thing. I made another weird mix today:

1. Sunn0)))- Hunting and Gathering. This band is overrated. There I've said it. Maybe it is because I don't smoke weed anymore, but I just don't understand why a band that plays a single note and a bunch of feedback gets so much hype.

2. Swans- Cop. Repetitive industrial beats. I like the other songs on this record better but this one does come to a nice climax.

3. Young Widows- Almost Dead Beat. Good noise rock jam that was just the right pace for my slow ass.

4. Cave In- The Red Trail. This is on their new EP. This songs like Converge. Every song on this EP sounds like a different band.

5.Godflesh- Wound '91. Another industrial song. I think I'm finally starting to like Godflesh. I still like his other stuff better though.

6. Eyehategod- Dixie Whiskey. Eyehategod is not only a great band name but they make me feel dirty and want hurt people. Instead I just run faster to hurt myself.

NPR Goes Metal

So I'm looking over the news over on the NPR website and I see this. A few paragraphs about drinking and metal then a five song playlist that includes Municipal Waste and St. Vitus. Weird and awesome.

Day 12

Monday August 24th. So I decide to go with avant-metal interspersed with black metal today. The result was actually very interesting especially because I hadn't heard most of the songs before. I sort of ran what is known as a Fartlek. This is what Wikipedia has to say about it: Fartlek, which means "speed play" in Swedish, is a form of conditioning which puts stress mainly on the aerobic energy system due to the continuous nature of the exercise. The difference between this type of training and continuous training is that the intensity or speed of the exercise varies, meaning that aerobic and anaerobic systems can be put under stress. Most fartlek sessions last a minimum of 45 minutes and can vary from aerobic walking to anaerobic sprinting. Fartlek training is generally associated with running, but can include almost any kind of exercise.

With varying speeds and strange sounds pumping into my ears this was a very enjoyable morning run. 3.7 miles to this noise:

Greymachine- ?

Enslaved- Loke

Thrones- Reddleman

Dimmu Borgir- Tormentor of Christian Souls

Caina- Tobacco Beetle

Disappearer- Nine Hearts (this song doesn't fit but it is good anyway)

Day 11

Thursday August 20th. Today was the first time I did any legitimate speed work. I did a five minute warm-up jog, two minutes of running at about 70% effort, three minutes jog. I did three cycles of that upping my fast pace each time. Brutal. I listened to Darkest Hour "Undoing Ruin" which was really helpful in today's workout. It has a lot of ups and downs, fast parts, mid pace parts and slow parts. It kept my interest instead of just grinding me into the ground.

Day 10"""

Tuesday August 18th. It is somewhere in the 90-degree-plus-humidity range today and I ran at around 1:30pm. That was an incredibly bad idea. I ran/walked 4.8 miles the last mile or so was. Again, very hot out.

1. Mouth of the Architect- Hate and Heartache. Nice and slow with a rallying cry of a sample at the beginning.

2. Metallica- For Whom the Bell Tolls. Again Metallica are great for running and the bell that kicks off this track is like a starting gun.

3. In Flames- The Jester Race. Another song pick because of the word race. Good little 1-2,1-2 beat going on midway through this song that was exactly in time with my pace.

4. Cable- Clinton St. Blues. This song is about drinking whiskey and driving through Montana. So pissed I missed them last week.

5. Napalm Death- Instinct of Survival. I was walking while this played but it's nice and fast.

6. Brutal Truth- Monetary Gain. Another grindy one.

7. At the Gates- Cold. I like to call this record "Slaughter of the Sole" now because I am super lame with puns.

8. Intronaut- Australopithecus. This had a good medium pace with some jazzy wanking and off time breakdowns.

9. Gunna Vahm- And Now I'm Gay. Every time I saw this band they gave off an aura of impending doom.

Day 9

Sunday August 16th. In Philadelphia there is a little something called the "City Wide Special", it traditionally consists of a shot of Jim Beam and a can of PBR. At the Cantina the special is Cuervo Silver and a can of Tecate. I had three of those followed by four more Tecates. Throughout the night I claimed that i would be running six or seven miles in the morning. Well, I tried. I lightly jogged for a mile to the first three jams on "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath". I have never felt so slow in my entire life. More miles tomorrow.

Day 8

Friday August 14. Today's mix was all Power Metal. There is something about the soaring vocals, triumphant lyrics and over-the-top solos that just makes me feel so alive. I honestly believe that power metal vocalists would make excellent motivational speakers. Think about it, vanquishing demons/dragons, being your own man, standing against the world, conquest. All of these things could be spun into a self-help or financial success seminar. That being said, I ran 4.3 miles to these songs:

1. Manowar - Courage. Best warm up song I have used thus far. It starts off all pianos and melodrama then the rest of the band kicks in and it's like soaring on an eagle.

2. Blind Guardian- Battlefield. They may think this sound like an epic battle but i think it is what you would listen to if you were a dwarf while drinking mead and eating mutton from the bone. That is not a bad thing though.

3. Dio- Rainbow in the Dark. I used to think dio sucked and held him responsible for ruining Sabbath (which he did). Then I saw him with Maiden and Motorhead. When he came out he looked as if he would keel over at any minute but then put on an amazing show. He does not suck and the keyboard line in this song is sick.

4. Hammerfall- Dreamland. There is a nice galloping guitar part going on here. Also the chorus is "Come with me I'll take you there, to a land of make believe"!!!! If that doesn't make you feel warm and fuzzy I don't know what will.

5. Iron Maiden- Run to the Hills. It took me way to long to use this song. I went for the "Live After Death" version. I could feel that live energy as ran, not to the hills though, Philly is pretty flat.

6. Dream Evil- Crusaders' Anthem. Pretty good though not as epic as the previous jams.

7. Kamelot- Nothing Ever Dies. This sounds like running into battle and ends with a sweet solo. The lyrics are pretty uplifting as well

8. Primal Fear- Lightyears From Home. Another fast gallop-paced song with highpitched vox and a ton of killer solos. It is also about outer space and seeing the devil before you die so that gets it some extra points.

9. Rhapsody- Forest of Unicorns. This was the cool down track. There are woodwinds, and possibly a pan flute, in this song. Kind of a lame song but I do like Rhapsody, alothough they sucked when I saw them.

I made this hand motion a lot on this run:

Metal Shirt

The most metal piece of running gear on the market! I saw this at city sport and it looked super small. They need to make a shirt designed for rolls instead of abs.

Day 7

Tuesday August 11th. This post is a little late but it has been a stressful week filled with bad shit and whiskey. But I digress. On Tuesday I ran for 2 easy miles while listening to Gifts from Enola's "From Fathoms". I'm totally on this band's jock right now and while they may not be metal they certainly have heavy parts (there was totally this sick breakdown this one time, I fucking saw it, man!) I suppose it was more of a post-rock-jog.

On another note you can download this record for free but still give the band and label royalties by going to gimmesound.com. Really cool site.

Day 6

Sunday August 9th. Last night's show was awesome. The past 3 days were great, now back to running. Today was my first long run. I did 6 miles down Kelly Drive. Brootal. Today's mix was pretty good and mostly kept me at a slow pace to make it through all those miles. No song by song description today, Just a track list:

1. Neurosis- The Doorway

2. Cave In- Juggernaut

3. Slayer- Raining Blood

4. Torche- Across the Shields

5. Victims- Scars

6. Woe- Condemned as Pray

7. Warcry- Under the Thumb

8. Mayhem- Deathcrush

9. Kumite- ?

10. Hewhocorrupts- She's a Fire Engine

11. Coldworker- Interloper

12. Isis- Weight

Shows

I took a few days off to play a weekend of shows (I'm in a band from philly called Monolith) with Gifts from Enola and If These Trees Could Talk . We hit Pittsburgh, Harrisburg and tonight we play in Philly. Both of these bands play awesome instrumental prog and are the nicest dudes. Check them out. If they come to your town you should definitely go see them. Really looking forward to tonight's show. This weekend has been a lot of fun.

Day 5

August 5th. Ran 2.75 miles this morning. It was very hot out already. Boo.

1. Earth- Rise to Glory. This is a super chill stoner track, a little too chill for a running warm-up but an awesome song none the less.

2. Tombs- Gossamer. This song was such a good pick up after the slow jam. It's bombastic, catchy and was a great way to pick up the pace.

3. Unsane- Scrape. I was just think about how awesome this video is while the song was on.

4. American Heritage- It's Like Fucking a Napkin Full of Toenail. Gross Title. Sounds like it belongs to a goregrind song but instead AH are mastodon-esque proggy riff laden southern metal.

5. Weekend Nachos- Hated. 34 seconds of power violence.

6. Dillinger Escape Plan- 43% Burnt. This song is sandwiched by one of my favorite breakdowns EVER. It made my legs want to kick move faster.

7. Explosions in the Sky- The Birth and Death of the Day. Really good song to cool down to. Not technically metal but they do a lot of noodley guitar work so I'll allow it.

Day 4

August 4th. Today is the first run with my new shoes and from what i can tell they are much better then my old ones. I ran 4.05 miles from my house down to the Delaware river and along the pier and back. Then I walked for another 1/3 mile or so. Here is today's playlist:

1. Kreator- Dying Race Apocalypse.  I picked this because the word race is in the title and it starts off slow and acoustic. Luckily it picks up.  The "Enemy of God" record is awesome.

2. Walls of Jericho- All Hail the Dead.  I'm not a huge metalcore (chuggametal)  but I've always liked Walls. Maybe it's because Candice is foive foot nothing and can out scream most dudes. Anyway I can see why bro's workout to this kind of music, the breakdown at the end is great.

3. Sepultura- Propaganda.  From the intro up until the abrupt ending this song kills it.

4. Entombed- About to Die. There is nothing like running in the heat with some dude yelling "You're about to die, just fucking diiieeeee!" in your ear. 

5. Pig Destroyer- Terrifyer.  Nice and fast and brutal.

6. Motorhead- Speedfreak. Another song I picked because of the title (I'm kinda cheesy that way, but it helps). Lemmy IS God.

7. Venom- Black Metal. This has s good tempo and I know the words which is always helpful. Lay down your swords for the god rock'n'roll. 

8. High on Fire- Deilution. The drums at the begining of this song makes me feel I'm being chased by angry orcs. That is pretty good motivation if you ask me. 

9. Walls of Jericho- Revival Never Goes Out of Style- The mix i made ended so i just put the Ipod on shuffle. This is pretty much just an old school hardcore song. Excellent use of gang vox.

10. Breather Resist- A Social Worker's Nightmare. I'm not really into this band. I need to put Young Widows on my Ipod.

11. Cult of Luna- Back to Chapel Town. This was my walking/cool down song. Cult of Luna are so good at the whole "Neurisis" thing. They need to come back to the states. 

My New Shoes

So i figured if I am running a "Heavy Metal Half-Marathon" I should purchase the proper footwear. I figured these bad-ass 80's thrashin' high-tops would do the trick. Unfortunately, I'm not a barbarian, I am an overpronater so I had to get these puppies pictured below:

I personally still think these are pretty fucking metal as well.  

Day 3

Ran 1.82 miles today. Started with a 5 minute warm-up, then picked it up to a near sprint.

1. Warmup: Clutch- Rock'n'roll Outlaw. I love Clutch and it turns out mid-tempo stoner rock is good way to kick off a run.

2. Most Precious Blood- Shark Ethic. This song starts off slow and epic sounding then gets faster and really got me going. Awesome.

3. Buried Inside- Time as Ideology. It is hard to run as fast as a blast beat. That being said this is a good sprinting song.

4. Carcass- This Mortal Coil. I was pretty wiped out but this song kept my pace up. Mid tempo Death Metal.

5. Career Suicide. I walked it off to this and a track by Engineer from the record "Reproach."

Day 2

Thursday July 30th. I ran 4.12 miles and listened to Torche's "In Return" for the first time since "Meanderthal" came out. This record starts of nice and slow then picks up to metal/pop goodness with plenty of noodling. Not a bad choice at all.

Day 1

So this blog is to document my training for my next half marathon. While training i will be running to metal fairly exclusively. So day one was Monday July 27th. I ran a little over 3 miles from my home in South Philly to 24th and locust and back with a fair amount of walking at the end. Here is the day's playlist:

1. Warm-up: Slayer- Dead skin mask. This has a slow tempo good for keeping a slower pace. the child screaming at the end threw me off a bit though. I forgot about it when making the playlist.

2. Isis- Hive Destruction. I chose this because it is one of the few Isis songs I know the words to. It wasn't very motivating.

3. Metallica- Ride the Lightning. From the first riff I felt my blood start to pump and I stepped up my pace to a moderately fast run. I picked this song because i likened riding lightning to running my ass off. 

4. Mastodon - Blood and Thunder. This was the high point of the run. I turned on the speed, sang along and air drummer as a pushed myself as hard as I could. I felt like a fucking viking. 

5. There Were Wires- Lukewarm Happy. Early 2000's screamo. This kept me going.

6. Black Anvil- Release the Kraken. I skipped this song half way through. Too fast then too slow.

7. Coalesce- Dead is Dead. This is a great song but not so great for a run. The end does pick up a bit with some old school gang vocals.

8. Darkest Hour- Sound of Surrender. Sweet thrash.

9. Cool down- Neurosis- Falling Unknown. This song is the perfect way to calm down at the end of a hard run. The vocals at the end suck me in and I'm totally relaxed.

1.