I’ve played this game before where I plan out my playlist for an ultra and then post it here and then don’t listen to it but this time I’m going to have four playlists. Why? Well one for each leg of the out and back.

I go through phases with songs but there are a few classics that will probably make all four legs ‘for once in my life’ and ‘signed, sealed, delivered’ by Stevie Wonder will be two of those, melancholy songs such as ‘While my guitar gently weeps’ will be restricted to leg one because you don’t need to start looking inward as your counting down those last few miles.

I’ll probably start with ‘Everything is awesome’ from the lego movie and then drift straight into an hour of 70s classics with the soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy – there’s some hum dingers in there such as ‘Escape (Piña Colada)’ ‘Want you back’ and ‘Spirit in the sky’ – that will hopefully set my mood quite nicely for trundling along at the back of the pack.

The Moulin Rouge soundtrack will feature during the darker sections of the route as I enjoy the tempo and the generally romantic and comedic story. There will be some stuff from James Blunt too, songs like ‘Stay the Night’ and ‘Bonfire Heart’ always give me a huge lift – now I realise my song choices are reading like I’m some sort of wet blanket but it’s simply that I enjoy running to up tempo music. And given that all the indicators suggest the Winter100 is a bruising and potentially miserable run then I’m going to need to hang onto the big gun disco tunes.

But there will have to be some big rock songs from the Foo Fighters, most of the Soundcity album and even some feel good Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers – it won’t all be inspired by Glee 🙂 the other big change will be that I’ll take some podcasts like Desert Island Discs, the News Quiz and even a bit of Andy Hamilton’s ‘Old Harry’s Game’. Hearing coherent human voices in conversation I’ve discovered helps to keep the night terrors away.

So all in all I’ve got a plan, it’s a musical plan and hopefully I can choreograph some nifty footwork to match as I prance round the 100 miles of Ridgeway and Thames Path!

Now the question is ‘what will you be listening to?’