Confession: I caved and bought $40 headphones yesterday.
I don't usually waste so much money on something that can be purchased for $10, or comes free with an iPod, but like many other avid runners, I have been on the hunt - for the perfect pair of headphones.
Ones that won't hurt your ears an hour or more into your workout. Ones that won't fall out when you sweat. Ones that sound good, yet feel like they're virtually not there.
I am probably known at my local Target as "the girl who purchases headphones, opens them, uses them once and then returns them in a week, dissatisfied." It's amazing that they continue to let me do this - so much so that I actually went to a different Target for my latest foray in headphone land, lest I be forced to return these as well.
Buuuut I don't think I will this time.
If you're like me and you do random Google searches for "best workout headphones," you are dying right now to hear which brand and model I say. So I'll just tell you: They're Sony Sport Headphones, model MDR-AS40EX. They come with two lengths of cord (one just two feet, to connect to an iPod in an armband, the other long), three earbud sizes and three over the ear sizes. What's more is that the over-the-ear pieces are optional.
These things are ingenious. I must've been really excited because I hadn't even planned to work out this morning, but I woke up at 6 a.m. and couldn't sleep, so like any masochist, I thought, "Let's try out those new headphones!" Today was supposed to be a "rest" day for my legs, so I used the elliptical for 40 minutes. This is important to note because the elliptical decreases impact, meaning that there's less bouncing around and headphones are less likely to bounce off.
Ten minutes in...headphones haven't moved. Twenty minutes in...I'm sweating and the headphones haven't moved. Thirty minutes in...I accidentally jerk on the cord with my hand and almost pull my iPod to the ground. But my headphones? THEY DON'T MOVE.
Obviously, I'm thrilled. But the true test will come tomorrow when I do a longer outdoor run, because what I really want to know is, "Will these bad boys stay on throughout an entire half or full marathon?"
The only drawback is that the sound quality isn't as good as the usual in-ear headphones I use, but it's something I'm willing to deal with if it means I'm not fiddling with my ears every two minutes.
