Post #3 My Genius Hour Research continued...

For this week I went for a one hour run. During the first half of the run I listened to music, and during the second half of the run I had the music off.

Here's a link to the activity and my pace:  https://www.strava.com/activities/5964395703

To be honest, I didn't fund my result were very conclusive.

First, you'll notice from the splits that there appears to be little to no difference in the pacing when comparing the two halves of the run.  The last section is slightly downhill, and any small increase in pace there can be attributed to that.

You might recall from my research last week that the articles I read said that music tends to help disassociative runners, which I very much am.  This means that when I run I like to enter a disassociative state, that might be described as meditative or semi-conscious.

The act of performing this experiment actually hindered me from attaining that state, and I found myself much more consciously aware than I like to be.  Being in this hyper-sensitive state actually took away from my enjoyment of the run.

In the past while listening to an album on a run, I can actually find that I have no recollection of entire songs playing, as I was disassociated during the activity, that I made no conscious connection with the music as it played.

Perhaps the music helped me reach that state, or create an atmosphere to reach that state, then once there I no longer perceive it.

So my main conclusion is that it appears I will struggle to  perform any experiments on this particular subject, as the act of experimenting disrupts the very phenomena I'm attempting to replicate.