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Ben Gibbard Likely Lying About His Running Playlist

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In the February issue of Runner’s World, renowned jogger and occasional musician Ben Gibbard broke down his recent obsession with running marathons and sprinting around Seattle — for once hitting the pavement instead of just ripping off Pavement. In the Q&A he breaks down chasing the runner’s high, running the soggy L.A. marathon, and (cute guy alert!) losing a couple of toenails in the process.

Obviously, what got us interested was when the reporter asked, “Is there a song you listen to when you really need to pump yourself up?”

Says Gibbard: “Somebody on the Internet did a mashup of Ludacris and a song by She & Him, ‘Sentimental Mouths.’ The vocals are She & Him, but they put it with Ludacris, and it’s a totally triumphant thing for me to run to.”

First off, there’s no way dude is running to this. At a lurching 76 bpm, it wouldn’t get him from the Key Arena to the Space Needle in under an hour. Also, it’s completely terrible, though SPIN certainly understands the impulse to want to do anything that makes She & Him listenable. Come on, dude. Now that you and the Zoo are splitsville, you can be honest with us…

Says Gibbard: “Whenever ‘Burning Inside’ by Ministry comes on, I get kind of excited.”

We are psyched to learn Gibbard is a Ministry fan and are quietly praying that the new Postal Service album trades that slender car commercial rock for the industrial sounds of rocks hitting cars.

Says Gibbard: The first song I listened to in the marathon was by a Seattle hip-hop group called LazerBeam. I listened to it 10 or 15 times. It was exactly the right tempo for the speed I was going.”
We don’t know what Lazerbeam song he used, but if it’s the speed of that She & Him song, there’s probably a good chance he;s still in Los Angeles…