The Spirit of the Marathon cosplayers at The Runners' Lounge are forcing me to write about blogging. I say forcing because I cannot think of anything to write about today, yet I would never choose to blog about blogging on my own. I think writing about writing is pretty dull to read, and blogging about blogging makes me feel downright dirty. Proceed with care. This post may be more boring than usual. So, why do I blog? A few reasons spring to mind.
- Blogging is yet another means of tracking my progress. I have a pen-and-paper log wherein I scribble facts and figures about my training, but that tool fails to capture the story of my running life. It just captures data. My blog is where I think out loud about running and play with ideas. Whereas with my paper logs, I can review past performances, with the blog I can look back and see how my attitudes have changed over time.
- Blogging allows me to interact with people who share my interests. It's a lot different trying to make friends when you are 38 and working, with a family, from when you are a teenager, in school and surrounded by people just like you. Very few of my friends run, so there are limits to how much I can bond with people in meatspace about this stuff. Blogging lets me ask and answer questions and learn from others. This yields very concrete training benefits, because what I learn usually translates into performance gains.
- Blogging serves as an outlet for my writing. I have a deep-down need to write and publish, and for better or worse, the internet makes that easy. If I don't run, I can't write about it, so in a round about way, blogging serves a motivation tool that keeps me running.
- Very occasionally, blogging nets me free stuff. But these blessed events are too infrequent to be true incentives.
Great post. Those are some very familiar reasons.
ReplyDeleteThe combination of publishing easily and having an environment to test ideas in is really great. What I think is even greater is that people actually take the trouble to read my (sometimes) mindless ramblings.
Um. Where's the free stuff?
ReplyDeleteYou're right about how the blog enables you to see how your attitudes have evolved over time. For that very reason, I used to put a lot of the stuff I blog about in the pages of my pen-and-paper training diary, but it's more fun to put it on the Internet where someone, somewhere might actually read it!
ReplyDeleteMy stomach was wack all day yesterday. It was good to see you ran even though you didn't want to ... because I'm procrastinating right now. Aye yi yi. I know once I get moving it'll be fine, but ...
ReplyDeleteour blogging reasons are along the same lines. I look at it as both an outlet and a log. I love going back and reading my random thoughts and laugh at my own stupid jokes
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