Does running to music reveal your truest self?

Endorphins make you play what you really love to listen to, says music writer Dave Holmes

Distance running has its hazards. We expect sore knees, tight hips, early mornings and surplus race T-shirts. But on top of that, thanks to running, I’m navigating the world’s silliest identity crisis.

I must run to music and I start every long run like the indie rock guy I think I am. ‘An open road and a new Arcade Fire album,’ I tell myself. And that works… for about 20 minutes. Then the endorphins start, my mood lifts and my fingers make decisions my brain might not condone. I click away from cool bands and call forth the divas. My headphones become the world’s most exclusive discotheque. The data tells me I do this approximately 100% of the time.

Spotify diagnosed my split personality. I looked at my algorithm-generated daily mixes: mix 1 was Fontaines D.C. and Sam Fender, music I am comfortable telling people I like. Mix 2 was Ariana Grande and Beyoncé, music I am in the closet about loving. The app put it plainly: mix 1 is who you want to think you are, but mix 2 is who you are. Endorphins, it turns out, are truth serum.

Why can’t we admit to liking what we like before the brain’s exercise narcotics give us permission? ‘When we become adults, we forfeit a little of our backbone,’ says Curtis Peoples, a runner, spin instructor, and member of the band Kids in America. ‘We lose our ability to own the music we loved as kids, so we listen to it ironically. And we only do that because someone else lost their joy and we don’t want to risk their judgement.’

That’s bad enough, but for me there is another, deeper layer: I’m comfortable telling people I’m a gay man, yet 30 years after coming out, I still struggle to tell people I like Diana Ross. A gay man embracing pop divas is fraught. It kicks up issues of shame and internalised homophobia and the profoundly understandable desire not to be seen as basic. It’s just one of the many bars in the prison of masculinity we’ve built for ourselves.

To hell with it. The divas give me the energy to keep going and I’m not alone: ‘I can get as much emotional catharsis out of Whitney Houston’s

How Will I Know as I can from Nirvana,’ says Peoples. ‘Don’t Leave

Me This Way, by Thelma Houston? There’s only one effort level you can give to that song – 100%.’

Whatever it is you feel weird about loving, put it in your ears and put some running shoes on your feet. Embrace it. I’m going for a run right now, and I’m starting with Christina Aguilera’s What A Girl Wants. I will lean into my true self, and I will be proud. Just don’t tell anyone, okay?

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