A few months ago I joined a local marathon training group, and every Saturday the group meets to do a long run. Due to other plans I had to miss the last long run, so I made up for it by running 10.5 miles by myself. Now, running that kind of distance with a group is fun, but doing it alone can be reeaallly boring. So, the night before the run I configured FeedDemon to download several podcasts and synch them with my iPod while I slept.
During the run I listened to snippets from these podcasts, which included Chris Pirillo’s interviews with Tim Bray and Steve Gillmor, followed by the interview with Stewart Copeland and audio of the Web 2.0: Music is a Platform panel from IT Conversations.
Being able to listen to new podcasts helped me survive the run without dropping from boredom. I was even tempted to continue running so I could keep listening – but the next day’s soreness made me thankful that I stopped when I did :)