I'm hearing birds

I've been running with my Iphone using the Nike+ GPS app.  No, I don't post my runs to Facebook or get cheers as I run.  I would if I didn't think I would end up de-friended. 

So one of the many benefits of the Iphone and Nike + includes tracking my miles, seeing some semblance of my pace, a pretty map and getting interrupted by calls.  Oh, and I can listen to music. 

I typically run with my aptly and creatively titled play list called "running songs".  I used a great tool to tell me the BPM so that I could find a bunch of fast but not too fast paced songs to keep me moving.

I'm bored to death with the mix.  Since I got the phone in February, I've used it for exactly 34 hours 48 minutes and 10 seconds of running.  Nearly every second of that was listening to the songs on that play list.  So I shook things up a bit by allowing my phone to randomly play all the songs in my libarary except Christmas songs. 

Things were going great on my run until a really relaxing album came on that is filled with this sort of meditative piano music.  The Living Music, my Michael Jones CD is really nice when trying to fall asleep but not what I consider inspired running music.  However, since I didn't want to be a slave to my musically infused metronome, I kept running while listening to "Morning Mist" or "Spring Song" or some other stirring melody.

It actually was nice and then I started to get confused because I was hearing things in the music I hadn't heard before.  Birds... not just one but a bunch of singing birds.  I listened carefully and kind of got a kick out of listening to fake birds while running outside.  It seemed ironic and kind of silly...that is until the song ended and the singing birds didn't.  I pulled my ear buds out and the birds were even louder.

I didn't realize that I was missing out on so many birds.  Maybe they just migrated in but most likely my carefully chosen, BPM focused music was drowning them out.

So today, I ran with one ear bud out and the music turned down.  I heard lots of birds and while I can't understand them because I am a predator, not a song bird, I think they liked how fast I was running and that I finally was listening.