Day 136: Jennifer O'Connor and my "Home Stretch" Song

Ok, I apologize for the live show aspect of this song, but I actually enjoy that in this video. There is some tuning and cutesie talking until about 0:51, and then she begins to introduce this song, which begins at about 1:31, and then it ends at about 4:30.

Remember my post about a week ago explaining how I used to not care too much for Jennifer O'Connor, but changed my mind about her this summer? Well, this is one of the songs that made me change my mind...

When I began running in the River Valley, I looked through the songs in my library for upbeat songs between two and three minutes long. This was one of them. As a beginner runner, I began training with intervals of walking 1 minute/running 2 minutes, working my way up slowly. (At my strongest point this summer, I was to run for a max of five minutes straight. Next summer, I hope to make it a full twenty minutes of running!) The plan was to change the music as I progressed, but I never did manage to do that. It became the routine, then, to hear this song always at the same point in the course of my run. I was always out of River Valley - at the very least - and either running west close to the Drive or south along the street my building is on. With this placement, this song has become my "home stretch" song. I can flip to it at any point when I need a second wind and get myself pumped for a good finish. I love it!

Jennifer O'Connor - Tonight We Ride

Yesterday, I brought you a song I loved when I was in Vancouver, and grew to no longer love.
(It's funny how time can allow our interest to wane in such a way.)
Today, I bring you an artist that I didn't care so much for while in Vancouver, but now I love!
(See how nicely I dodged a few negative words there. An example of a "negative word" I dodge well is "hate.")
How exactly did I come by Ms. Jennifer O'Connor's CD? I'm not quite positive about that. There are two possibilities, and both of them would mean I got the CD for free...which is something I always enjoy!
Option one is that I was given the CD from my work at the time - a large bookstore chain that shall from this day forward be named "The Book Store" - but this seems like the least likely possibility.
Option two is that the CD was handed to me by my editor at the Ubyssey, UBC's student newspaper, in hopes that I would, in turn, provide the newspaper with a review of it. Despite the lack of a review on this CD, written by me, appearing in the newspaper, this is the more plausible explanations of where the CD came from.
(The lack of review at that time stems comes from this fear I still have of saying something mean about somebody else. My mother taught me "if you don't have anything nice to say about somebody, don't say anything at all." While I have yet to overcome that fear, as previously mentioned, I am better at avoiding negative words now!)
Either way, O'Connor's CD has remained in my collection ever since. She has survived five moves for a reason. What that is, I'm not quite sure, but I do know that I now appreciate her music in a way that I was possibly not mature enough to appreciate at that time... It's nice to realize that there is a world of benefit in growing older...