Several times during a group run, I’ve caught up to a fellow member and initiated a conversation and got no response, then I noticed they were wearing earphones or earbuds.

Many runners like listening to music while running, but I prefer to be attentive of my surroundings, especially if I’m running in a natural area. I do like music, however, when driving.

Also, I’m stuck with headphones that are so big, they’d bounce right off if I tried to run with them.

I can’t upgrade to earbuds because I’m locked into a service contract when I purchased the above pair in 1998 that still has twelve years to go. Sounds unreasonably long, but the price was very attractive for a headset that combined phone, radio, streaming music and screenless TV. (I never figured out how the screenless TV function works.)