Bren’s Running Tunes

(this post was written by Kyle on April 16, 2009, and it concerns )

As most of you know, my brother Brendan is running the Boston Marathon on Monday in support of TEAM FOX, which is part of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Brendan has to raise $5,000 as part of his agreement with TEAM FOX, and as of this moment, he’s at $4,585. If you would like to contribute and help speed the development of critically needed new treatments for patients with Parkinson’s Disease, you can do so over on Brendan’s TEAM FOX page.

But this post isn’t about money. It’s about music.

When I was driving home from visiting the family over Easter Weekend, I started developing a playlist of songs that I thought would be pretty cool to run to. Now, Brendan usually runs to Phish, the Grateful Dead, and a reggae band named Groundation.

Which is fine.

But I thought it’d be fun for him to run to a playlist of songs that stray a wee bit from what he usually listens to.

So, to that end, I put together a playlist of Bren’s Running Tunes. It’s just about 75 minutes long, and it should be played in order (i.e., not on shuffle). I tried to pick tunes that would, for the most part, help a runner keep pace, but there’s a song or two on there that are included for “hype” purposes.

Especially the first tune. I used to listen to it when I went rollerblading after working the evening shift at Engine House, when I had all the streets of Swampscott to myself. Great tune to start moving with.

And no…the opening song is not “Fire on the Mountain,” which with its opening line, “Long distance runner, what you standin’ there for?” seems like the obligatory opener for any marathon-inspired playlist. In fact, you won’t find “Fire On The Mountain” anywhere on this playlist. As I said above, these are tunes that I don’t think Brendan owns, or if he does, then I don’t think he ever plays them.

I contemplated listing the tracks on the playlist, but I think it’d be fun if you discover them one by one, so there’s no tracklist here. Like a marathon runner, you’ll just have to muscle through to the end.

But in the meantime, raise your glass with me and salute my brother.

May you kick those Kenyan asses, my good man.