Threshold workout help!

I love Dave McGovern's racewalking alumni e-mail group - I was whining about how hard threshold workouts are (lactate threshold workouts, which in Dave's RW book are about 85% max HR), and someone suggested this software called "Repacer". It adjusts the beat of your music to match a desired cadence. For racewalking, to get my heart rate that high, I need to have my music about 190 bpm (for 190 strides per minute). Not many songs are that fast. But with Repacer, I can just speed them up a bit. I take my faster music files, and tell Repacer to make them 190 bpm (you can choose any bpm you want to repace your files to --- so this would be good for walkers, fitness walkers, bicyclists, runners, aerobics classes, you name it!), and voila! new music! It DOES NOT change the pitch of the music at all - just speeds it up a bit. It warns you if you try to speed it up TOO much, so the music will still sound great. In addition, the website I got it on has a search feature for songs of any tempo, so you can buy more music that is close to the speed you want. This program is AWESOME!

Last night I made 2 mixes - a 180 bpm mix and a 190 bpm mix, for my threshold workout this morning. I tested them out, and it really helped me keep my target HR! If I started to lag, the music kept me on track - knowing I had to keep my cadence the same as the music just gave me a kick in the seat of the pants. It was just what I needed to make the threshold workouts a little less painful.

Oh, and at only $24.95, it was a bargain. I had been considering getting another mp3 player that would change song speed, but hated to do that since I really LOVE my iPod nano. You can try the software for free (try it! you'll love it!), but to save a whole song you need to register it.