Music vs Pain

Until now I've been wrestling with whether or not to shell out for an iPod. You see them everywhere now, the telltale white cables snaking up out of someone's jacket and disappearing under their hat, or terminating in the little white earbuds. I finally broke down and bought a 4G nano last week, and so now I am one of Them. The Pod People. Hardly cutting edge now, even though Apple seems to bring out a newer, smaller, sexier model every other week, but I didn't buy it to be cool. I told myself it would be good to have for long runs and later, long bike rides (in the country away from city traffic of course).

An unexpected side benefit came to light today on my long run. Another 20k jaunt through the Don Valley up to Sunnybrook Park, and what a beautiful day it was. Clear blue sky, temperatures just below freezing, and the bike path was almost totally free of snow and ice. The only thing that could mar a day like today would be, oh, I don't know, chronic back pain. My back has been giving me grief again, this time for about the past 2-3 weeks. A round of shiatsu and accupuncture last week helped for a few days but the pain is back (ha ha) again now.

So how does that relate to the iPod? Listening to tunes today (first run with the iPod) was a great distraction; it kept me from focusing on my back too much. The iPod was great to run with, especially in the valley away from traffic noise. It's very quiet down there and the music sounded awesome. I'm also pretty sure that it helped me shave a few minutes off my previous 20k run time, just by keeping me in a good groove. My back still hurts, but I guess Apple can't do much about that. I'm seeing an osteopath in a couple of days so I'm hoping she can help pinpoint the cause of this.