A Year? Reallly?

It was a year ago that a couple of friends talked me in to starting a blog. Wow. A year? When I started I remember wondering what on earth I would write about on a regular basis. Do I really have that much to write about? Turns out I do... It isn't all great, but it's out there. And oddly enough, people read it, or at least pretend to read it. Either way, I'm grateful.

So what's changed in a year?

-I ran a lot of races. I suppose that's not too different than any other year, but what was different was that a lot of them were on trails. Which was awesome. And terrifying.

-I got a tad bit more comfortable with the marathon distance. That was pretty unexpected. I did three full marathons fairly close together and before I knew it, I was no longer terrified of the distance. It's still a mean SOB of a distance, but I'm more comfortable with it now.

-I ran an ultra. It was a 50k and I kept saying it's just five more miles, it's just five more miles, but dang.... those five miles were a doozy.

-I run most of my runs by heart rate training. It's been frustrating and rewarding, and I'm enjoying running again which is AWESOME! Of course, now that the soul sucking heat of summer is here. It's like I'm starting heart rate training from square one.... great!

-I eat differently. Back in February a few folks at my gym had done this thing called The Whole 30. For 30 days you cut out common inflammatory causing foods (grains, beans, sugar, soy, dairy), then you can reintroduce them and see how your body reacts. Aside from sugar withdrawal that felt like (I assume) a heroin detox, it was amazing! And I've continued to eat this way about 80-90% of the time. I swear I'll write more about this sometime...

How has having a blog that's mostly about running changed how I run?

I've thought about this a lot. Like if I'm on a long run and nothing funny is happening or no breakthroughs are occurring, I start to get panicky.  What am I going to write about? Who's going to want to read about a boring run where nothing happens? Who wants to hear about some Debbie Downer crap run? It turns out that blogging about running has added a certain level of stress to some of my runs. It's stupid I know, but I don't want to disappoint the three people that read this bad boy.

On the positive side... writing about my running has made me notice things about running that I wouldn't have thought about before. I question WHY a run was good or bad more than I ever have. I'm not great at descriptive running logs, so my blog has been a great tool for me to look through when I need to get a grasp on what's working, what's not, and what I can do about it.

So is the blog a good thing for me? Yes! I reckon I'll keep at it.