When I first became obsessed with running (probably mid-way through my sophomore year) and things really began to click, I ended up glued to the website "penntrackxc". My dad had already made an account under our email under the pseudo-name etrain11 (his nickname was "Earl" which eventually became shortened to "e", the "train" is from the weight training he does and the 11 is for his (and my) birth month of November) and I was fortunate enough to be given access.
For those of you who haven't been around the sport as long as I have, believe it or not there was a time when the penntrack forums were littered with athletes and discussion of the sport rather than mainly people complaining about databases or asking for meet information. In fact, on my team alone there were a slew of penntrack users. I think there were at least 10 or so people from our team posting quite frequently online in forums: making predictions, trolling, all sorts of things. And there were tons of teams like that online to the point where the forums were really popular.
As time went on I became more and more consistent with my posts and became a frequent predictor, forum starter, etc. I learned as much as I could, studied the stats, and tried to think of creative conversations. Soon, the Top 50 rankings that I did on my own for fun during study hall were asked for by others and I began posting them straight to penntrack for discussion. Unknown to me at the time, I developed a bit of a following. We had fun with it and created a facebook fan page for my alter ego to see who would join. It was surprisingly popular and when I was blessed enough to attend states as an alternate in 2009, I learned that guys like Tom Mallon and Brady Gehret (guys I practically worshiped back then) knew who I was and that was super exciting.
It wasn't long before my brother suggested I start a blog for others to read. It would be a fun side project and I would be able to talk about whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I felt it was a way to get closer with the readers and my peers and make for a better overall experience for fellow runners. It was just a fun side hobby. My friends and I started advertising and talking to other people about it, trying to gain some viewership, but things were pretty slow. I retired and unretired from posting on penntrack. That was still the main place for discussion and the blog still had some work to do.
But at some point (and there is no chance I could pinpoint when exactly) the blog started to become pretty popular. I started to get triple digit views a day and then quadruple digit views a day. It was unbelievable. So I continued to advertise and try and come up with new ideas and of course I posted on penntrack to build the brand. One day, my account was deleted. I had a ton of posts from that account and so many ideas and memories and predictions were gone. It was heartbreaking honestly.
I'm not sure what exactly I said after that, but I'd bet it wasn't too positive and I probably said some things I regret now. At the time, all I wanted to do was write for that site, to be a part of it. It was what had made me who I was. But they cast me out and they deleted my information and, honestly, that stung. I just couldn't understand why they didn't like me. Why they insisted on ignoring my work. I mean things were going well at the blog. People seemed to like it. So why wasn't penntrack interested in what I had to say?
At some point I decided, whether accurate or not, that penntrack was ignoring me because they thought I was competition. Me? Competition? I was just some kid with a blog, what was there to be afraid of? But thinking back on it, I think they were scared. Scared of this new style, this new approach. The evolution of the coverage. And most of all, I think they were afraid of the community that the blog was growing.
You see what made penntrack great and now what makes the blog so great, is the conversations, the forums, the predictions and most importantly, the people. That's what I love about doing this. Interacting and discussing with so many different types of runners and fans.
Although running is individual in nature, I think it has the best sense of community out of any sport that I have participated in. You struggle and bleed in battle with great friends. Everyone understands a PR and the work it takes to get there. I can PR in the same race that my competitor PRs and we can both root for each other to succeed in our own way. It's amazing really, the brotherhood that the sport brings.
And that is what inspired me to try and push this blog another step. We are a brotherhood. We are the best community of athletes in the world. I love the spirit of a runner. It's why I couldn't quit running even after I graduated and I couldn't quit blogging even after it was time to hang it up. This is who I am. This is who we are.
I think that we are beginning to change the game. Whether penntrack will admit it or not, the work that we have done on the various blogs has changed their approach to the site. They've expanded their twitter usage and social media outreach. They've added various articles and posts that have more of a "blogger" feel to them. They are getting closer to predictions and analysis. Heck, they've even had top 50 rankings, a video show and "takes from the week".
I'm not sure when exactly I stopped secretly wanting to work for penntrack. It wasn't that long ago honestly, probably only a couple months. But now I realize I could never do it. It would be a bigger platform and allow me to reach more of an audience, but it would never be my vision. I like to do things my way and write whatever I want, whenever I want.
I think we each have a vision for how this sport should be covered. We each have different things we want to discuss and share with the community. And that's what I hope LXV becomes. I want it to not only be my vision, but our vision.
So if you have ideas, suggestions, posts or anything at all, get involved. We are a community. We are a brotherhood. And together, we can create something worth celebrating.
Train harder.
No comments:
Post a Comment