Tag: Spotify

Spotify Results for 2025

January 16, 2026 / Chris Brown / 0 Comments

As we work on revamping Becoming Elli and our Podcast – Fit Strong Women Over 50 – we wanted to thank our Spotify listeners. It looks like last year we had 27% growth from that channel.

Our goal is to contiue to bring you great content about getting and staying fit and strong as we grow older. We also want to continue to be one of the top podcasts for women over 50.

If you are new to Becoming Elli (or wonder who is Elli?) or Fit Strong Women Over 50 podcast, you can read our story here: Why Chris and Jill started Becoming Elli and the Fit Strong Women Over 50 podcast.

We have distribution of our podcast everywhere, so be sure to subscribe using your favorite site format.

Our podcast continues to be among the top podcasts for women over 50, especially in the health and fitness categories. See our ranking in the top 2% of all podcasts here.

Please leave a comment below if you have some ideas for improving our podcast and website. We’d love to hear from you. Thanks!

Finding Inspirational Music for My Running Playlist

October 21, 2021 / Jill McCauslin / 0 Comments

I often listen to music when I run by myself so I’ve created my running playlist on Spotify. I wrote about this in 2018 (wow, that seems so long ago!) and was just making the transition from playing music from a variety of sources to using Spotify. Now I just have my playlist and listen to that when I need some motivation or distraction or just a good beat to run with. I don’t usually listen to music when I’m running with someone or if I just want to listen to the sounds of nature.

I see that some of the songs that I mentioned in my earlier post are still on my playlist. Some of them I’ve forgotten about. Also, I said I was considering adding Lady Gaga to my playlist. I did that ages ago. Her music usually always has a strong beat.

Inspirational Music

There’s always music to listen to that keeps you moving. Figure out what song makes you want to dance when it plays and that’s a good candidate for your running playlist. Anything that makes you want to move can go into your playlist.

I find it helpful though to have songs that not only want to make me move but also inspire me to keep going. You know, songs that just motivate me.

There are a few songs on my playlist right now that have inspirational lyrics for when you’re slogging through a long run.

The first is I Run for Life by Melissa Etheridge. She obviously wrote it to promote breast cancer awareness and I can just see her singing this song before a Relay for Life event or some kind of fund raising race. I find it to be motivational.

The second is The Champion by Carrie Underwood and Ludacris. She wrote this for a Super Bowl but the lyrics really apply to anyone. The emphasis is on athletes but it works for me.

I think my favorite inspirational song is Hall of Fame by The Script, featuring will.i.am. It gets me moving and gives me something to think about while I’m running. The lyrics are inspirational and the music is great. I highly recommend this song.

My playlist is lengthy but these three songs stand out for being inspirational.

Finding Inspirational Music

You may ask how do you go about finding inspirational music. I ask around for advice on songs. I also read what people post for playlists and look for songs that I think I’ll like. This works for finding songs with a good beat.

Spotify and Pandora both have their own running playlists so I read through what they suggest and tag the ones that I want to add to my own playlist. This is a really easy way to add songs to the list.

One way that I’ve found to really find inspirational music is to listen to the soundtrack for videos for sporting events. For example, I watch some Youtube videos about triathlons and they always have inspiring music in the background. If you don’t recognize it, you can use Google to identify the music. I just ask Google, “what song is this?” and it usually identifies the song without problem.

Conclusion

I’m constantly adding songs to my playlist. I periodically go through and remove some but I don’t do this as often as I add to the list. So, the list gets pretty long. Fortunately if a song comes on that I don’t want to listen to, it’s easy to skip it and go on to the next.

Let me know what songs really motivate you. I’d love to add your recommendations to my playlist.

2018 Running Playlist

March 7, 2018 / Jill McCauslin / 4 Comments

The past couple of years I’ve tried different ways to put together a running playlist and have had varying degrees of success. The fact that songs on my Amazon account often don’t transfer to other music players and that I was getting music from a variety of sources meant I often had problems.

This year I’m trying Spotify. My son gave me access to a Spotify account where I can create a playlist and then download it to my phone. Downloading is important for those outside runs because I don’t have a cellphone plan with unlimited streaming so a long run with streaming costs money eventually.

So, this gives me the chance to start over with my running list. Last year’s running playlist turned into a bit of a mess because I kept moving around so a fresh start is welcome.

Running List Criteria

Here’s what I like to use as criteria for a playlist:

It’s catchy. I use music that makes me want to move around. This is more important than figuring out the beats per mile or the cadence or whatever. If it’s a song that makes you want to dance around your kitchen, you’ll probably want to run to it too. For some reason, Talking Heads songs often fall into this category for me, so I just put Stay Up Late into the list.
It’s got a good beat. I’ve been going to a cycling class and the class is closely tied to music. There’s a lot of good music there but I often forget it by the time class is over. Occasionally, something really sticks. The most recent one was a cover of Land of Confusion (the old Genesis song) by Disturbed so it’s now on my list.
Someone recommended it. I like these because they often lead to songs that I would never play but I add them to the list and then I think about that person while running. My son recommended Come With Me Now by Kongos so it’s on my list.
The song reminds you of someone or some event. Speaking of my son, certain songs work well for running and remind me of him. So, I have Seven Nation Army by The White Stipes and Everlasting Light by The Black Keys in my list.
I remember dancing to it. A friend once told me to just think of what was playing at frat parties when I was in college and use those songs for a running playlist. So, this year I returned to the ever popular Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen.
It’s a popular running song. Last year, Thunder by Imagine Dragons played at most of the races I ran so now it reminds me of summer days crossing the finish line. Into the playlist it goes!
I just like it. For some reason, Smells like Teen Spirit by Nirvana was one of my favorite running songs last year so it’s returned to my playlist for 2018. This one doesn’t fit any of these criteria but for some reason it’s a good song for running. I noticed that I’m suddenly wanting to add Lady Gaga to the mix.

I know I’ll add to this list and it will probably get to be a jumbled mess again this year but right now I’m looking forward to running with my new playlist. One thing is clear. My running playlist makes no sense by types of songs but the important thing is that it motivates me.

If you share some of your favorites, I’ll add them to my list and think of you when I’m running.