Tuneless in the 'Boro

Lately I have not been listening to my tunes when I run a race. My thoughts being that I can concentrate better on the what's going on around me without the distraction of the music. Today I had a 10k which I did in 44:59, 7:15/mile. A personal best for me that placed me 38th out of 589 timed finishers. Unfortunately that also translated into a 10th place finish for my age group. No year-long, free Chic-Fil-A sandwiches for me. Sigh. Still a personal best is a personal best. But it does make me wonder if I had my tunes, would that have made a difference? Honestly there was no way that I would have shaved the 5 minutes off of my time to qualify for the free chicken sammiches, but it would have been nice to have scored 7:00/mile (which consequently is my next goal). Studies have shown that the proper tunes can help increase one's pace by a few seconds. I imagine it is the combination of the beat and the distraction from the difficulty of the task that the music provides. After all, I have no problem digging on some Black Eyed Peas when I'm slugging out a long run, why not fall back to my tunes on a middle distance race? There is the argument that you don't know what's going on around you, so that you could easily trip or even miss a turn. Then there's the sneaky bastages who sneak around you while you're jamming to Phil Collins or Celine Dion. When that happens, you have to burn precious energy playing catch up. Ugh. Not fun. Still there is a 15k coming up, that if I decide to run in it, I think I will break out my mp3 player and then it's me and Jesse Mac tearing up the greenways! Yeehaw. Later kids.