My Product

My Conclusions

To answer my Genius Hour question as to whether listening to music while running can boost your performance, I used three strategies:  online research, a survey on Facebook aimed at any of my friends who are runners, and a couple experiments.

Online research

It turns out there are quite a few articles as well as many spirited forum conversations on the topic.  The consensus is that music can boost performance in many runners, however the effect varies depending on the individual.  It's also noteworthy that this performance boost can be significant enough that some believe it should be regulated in competition.

Survey using Google Docs and Facebook

Ten individuals participated in my survey.  Here are the results:

Eight out of ten participants felt that running boosted their performance.  Although this is a rather small sample size, the difference in the responses is still quite large and notable.

My Experiments

I conducted two experiments to attempt to enhance my running with music.

The first experiment had me head out for a run while listening to music.  However, this experiment failed because my constant conscious perception of the music and of the experiment at hand, meant that I couldn't' reach the disassociative state required to reduce perceived exertion.

For my second experiment, I instead tried running while having an in depth conversation with someone running alongside me.  In this case, I attained many of the benefits associated with music and running regarding time passing by quickly, and distractions that took my mind away from the effort of the activity.  It did not however cover every aspect of running and music, as some people claim the rhythmic pulse of the music helps guide their pace.

Conclusion

While running with music is not guaranteed to boost performance in every runner, it will certainly help some runners.  And, if runners are looking to an alternative to music, running while chatting with others is an effective replacement.