What BPM is best for general running?

MIXTAPE 1 features an average 140 BPM, ideal for general running workouts.

MIXTAPE 1 - Running Music

Marlo made this mixtape and I'm running to it, which means I'm now complicit in whatever chaotic brilliance or sadistic genius went into the sequencing. Three miles in and I'm getting whiplashed between Pixies' surfy distortion and The Smiths' jangly misery—Marlo clearly understands that running is just organized masochism with a playlist.\n\nThe genre collision here isn't accidental. This is riot grrrl slamming into post-punk, proto-punk careening into electroclash, math rock somehow coexisting with synthpop. It shouldn't work. Kathleen Hanna screaming over distortion at Mile 18, then Grimes' synth-pop shimmer at Mile 19, then Enter Shikari's metalcore at Mile 21—it's like Marlo grabbed every underground movement from 1977 to now and said "yes, all of it, consecutively." The throughline isn't BPM or tempo consistency. It's defiance. Every track here comes from a scene that said no to something: no to Reagan, no to the patriarchy, no to mainstream rock radio, no to good taste. Turns out that translates perfectly to running, which is fundamentally about saying no to your body's very reasonable suggestion to stop.\n\nMile 12. Legs composing resignation letters. Then "Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill detonates—all distortion and Kathleen Hanna's righteous fury—and suddenly my cardiovascular system is in a mosh pit it didn't consent to. This is what Marlo knew: the wall doesn't care about your playlist's genre cohesion. It cares whether the music hits harder than the lactic acid. Le Tigre's "Hot Topic" at Mile 4 name-checks every queer artist and riot grrrl hero while bouncing at electroclash tempos—it's a history lesson administered via adrenaline. Death From Above 1979's bass-drum brutality. The Damned's proto-punk chaos. Yeah Yeah Yeahs twice because Karen O's voice is pharmaceutical-grade momentum.\n\nThe final stretch is where Marlo's sequencing turns surgical. "Oblivion" by Grimes—all shimmer and dread—gives way to Chappell Roan's synth-pop heartbreak, then Enter Shikari's post-hardcore detonation, then Go Betty Go's garage-punk closer. It's like Marlo knew Mile 20 is where you need the music to get weirder, louder, more unhinged. My quads are staging a coup but the playlist refuses to negotiate. The Breeders' "Cannonball" hit at Mile 17 and Kim Deal's deadpan vocals became my internal monologue: detached, sardonic, still moving forward. That's the whole mixtape. Marlo handed me 75 minutes of defiant, genre-agnostic, beautifully chaotic music that matches the absurdity of choosing to run. It's personal. It's brutal. It works.

MIXTAPE 1

Mixtape with Marlo: Your Personal Soundtrack for Voluntary Suffering

Tracks

Featured Artists