The stretch between Oak and North on the Lakefront Trail is where you figure out if you're actually doing this or just pretending. Mile two. The lie of the first mile has worn off, your lungs remember they hate you, and you've got four more to go. That's when Beach Riot's "Robot" hits, and you realize someone made a playlist with exactly six bands—not five, not seven, SIX—like some kind of conceptual art piece for people who can't commit to full albums anymore.
Top 5 Bands People Dismiss Too Quickly: 1) Beach Riot - "Wrong Impression" proves they're not just another garage revival act, they've got hooks The Hives wished they wrote. 2) Bad Nerves - "Can't Be Mine" is two minutes of perfect power-pop desperation, like Buzzcocks if they grew up on Monster Energy drinks. 3) The Velveteers - Four tracks here and every single one sounds like Led Zeppelin recorded in a storage unit. That's not an insult. 4) Tigercub - Three consecutive tracks and you don't skip any of them, that's the test, they pass. 5) Pulled Apart By Horses - "First World Problems" is the most self-aware song title in rock music, fight me.
Here's what nobody tells you about egg punk and garage rock: it's the perfect running music because it's too short to overthink. These tracks are two, three minutes max. You don't have time to get bored or spiral into existential dread about why you're running at 7am on a Saturday when you could be at the store alphabetizing the punk section for the third time this month.
Beach Riot opens with two tracks that sound like early Strokes if they were angrier and British. "Robot" and "Wrong Impression" are the warm-up lie—they tell you this will be easy, that you've got this, that today's the day you finally become a real runner. You don't believe it, but you start moving anyway.
Then Bad Nerves kicks in with "Can't Be Mine" and suddenly you remember why you downloaded this thing. It's that perfect pop-punk energy that makes you feel seventeen again, back when running meant fleeing something specific instead of this vague sense that you should probably exercise sometimes. The Velveteers' "Devil's Radio" follows and it's all fuzz bass and drums that sound like someone throwing furniture down stairs. In the best way.
Mile three is where The Mysterines show up with "Hung Up" and you realize this playlist has a narrative arc you didn't see coming. It's getting heavier, messier, more desperate. The Velveteers come back with "Beauty Queens" and you're in full garage-rock immersion therapy now. This is music made in small rooms by people who couldn't afford proper studios, and that DIY energy translates perfectly to running—nobody's paying you to do this, nobody cares if you quit, you're just out here because the alternative is staying still with your thoughts.
Tigercub owns the middle section with three consecutive tracks, and here's the thing about "I.W.G.F.U."—you know exactly what those initials stand for, and that's the Wall Breaker moment. Track nine. Two-thirds through. The point where every run turns into a decision: are you running away from something or toward something? The answer is always both.
The closing stretch brings Pulled Apart By Horses into the mix, and "The Haze" is exactly what mile five feels like—confused, heavy, still moving forward despite every logical reason to stop. Beach Riot returns with "Tune in, Drop Out," and it's almost comforting, like seeing a familiar face at the finish line. The Velveteers close out the playlist with "Motel #27" and "Father Of Lies," and by then you're either done with your 8K or you've accepted that you're the kind of person who runs to bands nobody in your life has heard of.
What came first—the running or the need to categorize your entire emotional landscape through obscure genre tags? Obviously the running. Obviously the categorization. They're the same spiral, different shoes.
