The sun is out. The ice baths are full. The spikes will be laced up one last time.

With the NSIC championships on Friday and Saturday, we are officially in the outdoor track post-season (or “szn” as the cool kids say). When finals week and conference week converge, losing focus is easy, so I often fill the times in which I take breaks from schoolwork with Spotify. Music is proven to boost motivation and mood, which is also why many athletes listen to their favorite songs before competitions.

So, in the spirit of conference week, I compiled a playlist of my teammates’ favorite pre-race pump up songs:

1. “Run the World”–Beyonce (Avery Selberg)
2. “Legacy”–Eminem (Jesus Urtusuastegui)
3. “Killing in the Name”–Rage Against the Machine (Henry Klitzke)
4. “No Problem”–Chance the Rapper (Skylar DeJong)
5. “Higher”–The Score (Rebekah Rairdon)
6. “More Than a King”–Kid Ink (Ryley Nelson)
7. “How Do You Do”–Roxette (Endre Wigaard)
8. “Lose Yourself”–Eminem (Paige Sunstrom, Rachel Rairdon)
9. “Homebrew”–311 (Nick Larsen)
10. “Nice For What”–Drake (Emily Tromp)
11. “Mama”–My Chemical Romance (Sean Heaton)
12. “Let It Happen”–United Pursuit (Leah Seivert)
13. “Walking On Sunshine”–Katrina and the Waves (Alec Kray)
14. “Plain Jane”–A$ap Ferg (Reed Kurak)
15. “Hall Of Fame”–The Script (Josh Barrows)

Also in the spirit of conference week–and for a Media Aesthetics final project–I created an Augustana Track and Field hype video:

THIS IS TRACK