Last night my college roommate Emily had an extra ticket to the Chris Young concert in Silver Spring and asked me to tag along with her. Since I loved watching Chris Young when he opened for Blake Shelton at the Maryland State Fair this summer, I jumped at the chance to see him again.



Chris Young is a country artist and has some pretty amazing, not-too-twangy songs.

In fact, I have several of them on a variety of my running playlists, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorites, in case you're looking for some songs to spice up your own playlists.

Upbeat, Fun Chris Young Songs:

These songs are perfect for when you need a pick me up on your runs.

1. Save Water, Drink Beer
2. Who's Gonna Take Me Home
3. Gettin' You Home
4. I Can Take It From There
5. Lost

Slightly More Mellow Songs:

These songs are good for the middle miles of a long race, where you are just trying to cruise and not push the pace too much.

1. Voices
2. Tomorrow
3. You
4. The Man I Want To Be

His mellow songs are actually some of my favorites. I'm pretty obsessed with Voices and Tomorrow, and this summer I listened to Tomorrow on repeat all the time. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, I will probably end up listening to it again all day today. It's just that good.

What's the one song that you can listen to on repeat over and over again and not get sick of?

It's been ages since I've done a playlist post. To me, summer pretty much equals country music so needless to say, my country playlists have been getting a lot of love lately.

Here's a playlist my college roommate put together for me that I've been loving for running:

Song Title	Artist
Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not	Thompson Square
You Lie	The Band Perry
Dirt Road Anthem	Jason Aldean
Amen	Eden's Edge
Postcards from Paris	The Band Perry
Country Girl	Luke Bryan
Everything is Fine	Josh Turner
Little Miss	Sugarland
Honey Bee	Blake Shelton
Barefoot Blue Jean Night	Jake Owen
One More Drinking Song	Jerrod Niemann
Why Wait For Summer	Walker Hayes
Every Girl Like Me	Sugarland
A Buncha Girls	Frankie Ballard
Remind Me	Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood
Maybe It Was Memphis	Pam Tillis
Drink a Little Drink	Eric Church
Let It Rain	David Nail
Still Comin' Down	Christian Kane
Homeboy	Eric Church

What have you been listening to lately on your runs?

Ever since I started running in the mornings before work, I haven't been running with music. That's a big change for me because I never used to run without it.

Part of the reason I've been leaving my iPod at home has to do with safety. It's not quite light when I head out for my runs and I like being able to hear if someone or something is approaching me.

But a bigger part of the reason I've been going without my tunes is because I'm enjoying the morning tranquility. Even though there is still tons of traffic flying down the road I run on (don't worry there's a sidewalk) it still seems calmer. People don't seem to be in such a rush and it's just a little bit quieter.

It's a good time for me to let my mind wander and think about random things. It's also a good chance for me to focus on my to-do list for the day and start working through possible problems.

I've found on these shorter runs, I don't really miss the music, although I still listen to it on my weekend long runs to motivate me to keep going.

The relative quiet without my music is a nice change of pace. So for now I'm going to go with it.

Do you listen to music when running?