CHICAGO 2 LONDON

What came first—the playlist or the promise you couldn't keep? Joe's somewhere between miles sixteen and twenty-six in London, and someone in Chicago sent him this. Thirteen tracks. Chicago to London. A transatlantic care package disguised as running music. I've been on both ends of this. The person who needs the playlist and the person who makes it thinking music can fix distance. It never does, but we keep trying.

Here's what nobody tells you about the last ten miles of a marathon: your body's already made the decision to quit. Your brain spends those miles negotiating. The music doesn't change that. But the right sequence? It distracts you long enough to keep moving. That's what this playlist understands. It's not about tempo—Big Wild, The Vaccines, STRFKR don't line up at 180 BPM like some algorithmic heart rate optimization. This is about emotional pacing. The way dream pop washes over you when you're too tired to fight it. The way indie rock jangle cuts through when you need something sharp to focus on.

"If You Wanna" and "Never Ever" open with that future bass shimmer—Big Wild's production is all space and texture, like running through fog that never quite clears. Then STRFKR's "TenTentyTen" kicks in with that krautrock pulse, and suddenly you're not running away from anything, you're running *into* something. That's the pivot. That's mile seventeen when you stop bargaining and start moving.

The Vaccines show up at "Run Through the City" because obviously they do. Jangle pop as life raft. When The Vaccines put out *What Did You Expect from The Vaccines?* in 2011, every music snob complained it was too simple, too poppy, too *easy*. Barry fought me on this for a week. But simplicity at mile nineteen isn't a weakness—it's structural engineering. You need something you can hold onto when your quads are screaming and your brain's offering every rational reason to stop.

Top 5 reasons someone in Chicago sent this exact playlist to someone running London, and what it reveals about distance:

1. **The genres betray the sender** - Future bass, dream pop, shoegaze, jangle pop. This is Wicker Park in 2015 energy. Someone who bought vinyl at Reckless Records before it closed, who saw STRFKR at Thalia Hall, who knows Big Wild's Lollapalooza set by heart. You can trace a sender's geography through their taste.

2. **"Run Through the City" as track four** - Not the opener. Not the closer. Right when the promise of the run starts crumbling. The Vaccines at the exact moment Joe needs jangle to cut through the noise. That's not algorithm work���that's someone who's been at mile four when everything falls apart.

3. **The shoegaze gamble at "Seeing Stars"** - Washing you in reverb when you're exhausted is either genius or cruelty. Shoegaze asks you to surrender to the sound. At mile twenty, surrender is all you've got left. The sender knows this.

4. **No obvious bangers** - Nothing here screams "MOTIVATIONAL RUNNING ANTHEM." No Eye of the Tiger moment. This is music for people who run to think, not to conquer. The sender isn't trying to fix Joe's pace—they're trying to fix his head.

5. **Thirteen tracks for ten miles** - The math doesn't work unless you assume Joe's slowing down. The playlist accounts for failure. That's love, not motivation.

Venice Venture, Electrify, Stand Off—the middle stretch where dream pop and indie blur into this hypnotic middle distance. You're not thinking about form anymore. You're not thinking about London. You're thinking about whoever made this and why they thought these songs would matter. What came first—the distance or the playlist that tries to close it?

Here's what I know about running and playlists: we use both to time travel. Joe's running forward through London, but this music is pulling him backward to Chicago. To whoever sent this. To whatever they were before the distance. "Adult Diversion" at track ten is Alvvays doing that jangle-pop-with-buried-hooks thing they perfected on their first record. Molly Rankin's voice is so sweet you almost miss how sad the lyrics are. Almost. At mile twenty-three, you're too tired to miss anything.

The playlist ends with "6's to 9's," "Wicked Winds," and "Drive Slow"—titles that telegraph the crash. You're not sprinting to the finish. You're surviving it. Big Wild's "Drive Slow" as the closer is either perfect or devastating. Probably both. It's saying: the point wasn't speed. The point was making it.

I think about the person in Chicago who sent this. What they were hoping for. Music can't close the Atlantic. Can't make ten miles shorter. Can't fix whatever distance opened up between Chicago and London. But it can remind you someone's thinking about you at mile twenty-two when your legs are gone and your brain's offering every exit. That's not nothing.

The Lakefront Trail in November, wind off the lake, and I'm running to figure out why this playlist works. It's because it doesn't pretend. Doesn't promise you'll PR or even finish strong. Just promises you won't be alone in the hard miles. Chicago to London. Someone sent love disguised as a running playlist. Joe hit play at mile sixteen. The music didn't make it easier. But he kept moving.