Whether I am slogging away on the treadmill (thank you Run Oregon readers for your help in voting last year!! I love it!) or busting it out in the blustery weather sometimes I just get sick of bass pumping through my headphones* and want to switch it up for something a little bit more cerebral. Podcasts are super easy to download and free, what’s not to love?
Here’s some favorite podcasts of mine of Fall 2014:
Serial, Sarah KoenigSerial is everywhere right now and I am loving it so much. Sarah Koenig takes us back to re-examine a homicide that occurred in 1999 in which a young girl, Hae Min Lee was murdered and her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted of this crime. Week by week (on Thursdays, which I eagerly now wait for), Sarah takes us deeper and deeper into this crime in which details are fuzzy and motives are unclear. Every week I am just left hanging and I find myself going back and forth between Adnan having actually committed the murder or not. Listener discretion is advised, but also beware that this is an addictive podcast. I love to crank this one up when I am on the treadmill and just really get into the details. Right now I am leaning towards Adnan not having committed the murder.
The Rich Roll Podcast, Rich Roll 
Rich Roll is an ultra-athlete as well as author of “Finding Ultra” (which I have not read, whoops) and is a former over-worked and overweight man that found redemption in endurance athletics and vegan living. This is a harder one for me to get into from time to time because I am really intimidated by this dude and all he does – but I always find that once I get going that his tone is really accessible and interesting. He brings on a host of people to interview and their stories are always very fascinating and take you on a different journey than you would expect. He gets pretty deep with each podcast, also, they’re super long and perfect for a long-run. I end up feeling refreshed in more ways than one when I am through.
Crybabies, Sarah Thyre and Susan Orleans
I found this podcast just this last week and I am already in love. I am a crier when I run, so this is perfect and fits the bill. Instead of crying while listening to Katy Perry’s “ROAR”, I can listen to two awesome ladies that make me not feel so weird about it. I don’t quite know how to explain this podcast, but its about the emotional life with pop culture tied in. Susan remarks about reading a touching passage in “The Tales of Despereaux” with her younger son and I am being wistful while listening to it. In their first episode, they speak with Christopher Guest (Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show) about his emotional life and actors. There’s a lot of laugh-crying, give it a shot.
Another Mother Runner, Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea
An oldie, but a goodie – I always come back to listening to Dimity and SBS tell us about the running life of a mother – but even more so, as a woman. Some episodes are recaps of races they have done, other mother runner guests and athlete-professionals, but there’s always a lot of good chatter from these two. This was especially important to me when I was training for my first marathon last year – I listed to a lot of this and it really helped me focus and carry on in my very challenging long runs. My favorite episodes have been when they interviewed Lauren Fleshman, Kara Goucher, and Paula Harkin of Run With Paula. These ladies are really the bees knees and the questions they ask are great!
Are you listening to anything great?! Tell us about it in the comments section below.
