It is not my intention to drum away at my few readers everyday on this blog. It is meant to be about running, training, and racing, with short sidebars into other parts of my life. I don't want to scare off my readers now that I've got a few (I'll admit, I felt a bit nerdy at how excited I was to get my first follower) with excessively long, opinion-filled pieces about running and life and whatever I have a mind to rant about on that particular day. I feel a blog should be more like dating, less like an interview. Readers should get to know a blogger gradually over time, soaking up little tidbits about the blogger's personality piecemeal. They shouldn't be bashed over the head with a club inscribed with "HERE I AM, THIS IS WHAT I THINK, THIS IS WHAT I AM ABOUT". That being said, today is a sidebar post about my love of running, rather than just about the mechanics of my running.
This post spawns from this article, written by Jeff MacGregor of ESPN, about the recent Millrose Games. It is one of the best pieces about running that I have read in a long time, expressing sentiments about track and field that I have always had. Great ideas, topics that you love, these inspire great writing. This article is great writing. For all my love of the sport, I don't feel I've done much more than adequate writing here. I want to write something great. I want to write something meaningful, something that has weight.
This blog has been great inspiration for my running so far. Knowing that when I say something, others out there can read it and expect me to stick to my word is making it harder for me to slack off and be lazy. I don't know my audience, they are largely anonymous. Maybe they are just reading in passing, maybe they hope to learn something from me. Or maybe they are seeking an inspiration, someone else like them who is trying to get better, who's strength they can borrow in their own training. It is this thought that holds me to my workouts, that leaves me feeling ashamed when I skip a run and have to come on here and fess up.
I've been phoning it in when it comes to writing. So it seems to me the best way to do better is to declare to the people reading my blog that I will do better. I've always felt that there is a writer in me, it's time to work on that, to try to realize those goals.
Easy 5 miles in cold rain yesterday, but no weight lifting. Warm weather today, 4 mile tempo run coming up, but no more posts until late in the week.
Just write what you want to say, exactly how you want to say it. It's great so far! And I know what you mean about the accountability. If I don't get out and run, what will I write about?
ReplyDeleteI think the point that I didn't manage to get across is that I've been lazy as a writer. I approach my posts with no structure, no real plan for what I want to say or how I want it to come out, I just go with it. I think the problem is that I have some of my best ideas for posts laid out when I'm running, but if you don't write things down immediately they dim and you can never really replicate them later on.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the encouragement though. One of the things that lead me to follow your blog is that I enjoy your style of writing - the way you say things and the way you approach humor.