TIaRT - The Running Blog

Well, Take it and Run Thursday at the Runners' Lounge has hit another topic of interest to me: the Running Blog.

Believe it or not, when I started JogAmericaBlog, I didn't really know much about the on-line running community. I knew there were on-line communities for almost everything, but I just hadn't made the connection. Most of the blogs I read were political, with a few social blogs thrown in.

The idea of JogAmericaBlog popped out pretty suddenly. I was on a run, thinking about a new motivational trick. I hit on the idea of laying out my mileage on a map, which I guess is probably not the most original idea in the world. Then I thought about putting it on-line. And JogAmericaBlog was born.

At first, it was pretty lonely. I let a few friends and family know about it, and a few of them followed it, but I didn't get a whole lot of traffic. I still don't, but at least I have a few regulars.

The main thing that JogAmericaBlog has done for me is to provide motivation. I'm not just running. I'm running so that I can blog about it. Don't underestimate the power of bragging.

The flip side of that is that running always gives me something to post about. I'm sure that we all know bloggers who get "bloggers block", and go long periods without blogging, or quit altogether. That hasn't happened to me, because I've always been able to pick out the next landmark and photoshop myself into the landscape. OK, maybe it's not great literature, but it's something to write.

So, do I have any profound advice for potential running bloggers? Probably not. Other than to go ahead and get involved. You'll suddenly find yourself connected to all sorts of people that you probably would never meet in real life.