The best runs are different

Good runs are nice. Those are the runs where everything just clicks. The best runs are different. Maybe your running shoes aren’t on tight enough. Maybe your headphone cord is swaying around too hard, banging against your chest, tugging your earbuds.The mix you’re listening to is flat. A mile in you stop. You don’t slow down, you just stop. You think about walking back.

You unlace your running shoes and tighten them so that the blood can’t flow. You pull your iPhone out of your armband, change the mix, and wrap the cord around it, holding it like a relay baton. You start running again. Nothing special at first. It still feels a little weird. But it is different. You feel lighter, tighter, more of a bounce in your step. The mix slowly massages one track into the next and you feel your energy levitating your shoulders and upper torso.

Those are the best runs.