150000 views and counting!

Keeping a blog going for 8 years is no easy task. COVID, injuries and dealing with the loss of family only added to the challenge.

My blog has finally reached 150000 views!

I reached 100000 views in April of 2021 and wrote 100000 views and counting! on April 30th.

It took this blog 8 years and 2 months to hit the 150000 views mile stone, and it hasn’t been easy.

Reaching 150000 views

Like many bloggers, I started out with a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of ideas. Some ideas worked and a lot of enthusiasm has wafted away like smoke in a stiff breeze.

Some people have the talent for writing and coming up with good ideas. Some people are great at SEO, which means getting eyeballs and clicks on their posts.

I see bloggers posting everyday. I see bloggers posting consistently every week or two weeks.

It takes both talent and enthusiasm to write with some consistency in terms of quality and frequency over eight years. Even for a single year.

The Long way to 150000 views

The folks who write well and post consistently are able to build a large following which generally translates to a high volume of views.

I tried blogging once a week, twice a month and once in a while. Blogging twice a week was a lot of work and didn’t really grow my blog the way you might think it would.

Blogging once in a while has lead to a slow and steady growth in people checking out what I write.

Blogging when I have something to say seems more genuine, and that’s what I look for in a blog.

As my enthusiasm waned over the years, I found it harder to maintain my enthusiasm for a topic as I wrote about it.

Most blog posts take a few hours to write. Some have many revisions. Often I would find that after an hour, I just didn’t feel it anymore. The post I was writing was not worth the effort.

My low volume of output made the road to 150,000 views that much longer.

Reaching 150000 views was challenging

In the early years I was learning how to blog and was finding my voice. The newness and the learning experience kept me engaged as much as the writing did.

The past 18 months have been right in the middle of the COVID-19 epidemic.

My blog is focused on running and when races were cancelled my source of material dried up.

I did write about a few virtual races. They’re not the same as in person races but they were convenient and I learned to enjoy running in my area.

But I only wrote about a few of them. Without going somewhere and spending time with other runners, a virtual race feels just like another training run.

In addition to my source of topics drying up, I dealt with many of the same challenges you did.

Between biology and politics, the past two years have been a grind.

Does anyone know what day it is? Does anyone really care?

Well, now that we are back to the office, the day of the week has become important again and has added some much needed structure to our lives.

I found it hard to focus. As I mentioned above, my enthusiasm for a post often waned before I could hit the Publish button.

When I found something to write about, it often felt trivial compared to what was going on in the world.

And while I wasn’t clinically depressed, I was depressed like everyone else.

Every day the numbers kept going up. Stories about hospitals bringing in refrigerator trailers to hold the bodies. And then there was all the turmoil when we finally got two vaccines.

About two years ago I also injured my Achilles. This was about six months into COVID. Just when I really needed regular running to keep my head on strait.

That cut back on my training and recreational running.

My recovery has been an up and down road. And I can’t say that my attitude was always rosy.

And with people dyeing by the thousands every day, I couldn’t bring myself to write about my own trivial aches and pains.

Reaching 150000 in spite of my self

Over the past few years several of my posts have been generating more than half of my traffic.

What Distance can me child run went from 13,476 total views in 2021 to 39,672 total views as of October 28th, 2022. That’s almost triple in one year.

With people spending more time at home, working from home and having fewer activities for their kids, interest in this post just took off.

It was nice to see the click throughs to the resources I provided to help parents figure out how far their child can run at any age.

No one has ever commented that this really helped them out, but I have to believe that a few people book marked those other sites and went for a run with their child.

The next most popular post is New England Marathons Fall 2021 or 2022 now. That post went from 18,079 to 26,430 in one year.

Those two perennial posts did most of the heavy lifting to get me from 100,000 to 150,000 views.

Reaching for 200000 Views

With in person running and my ability to run coming back, achieving the next milestone should not take 18 months.

We all know that running improves your attitude and makes you more energetic.

I’m also looking to run the 2023 Boston Marathon. That journey will give me plenty to write about.

As the malaise of COVID-19 dissipates (hopefully), my energy and enthusiasm returns and interesting stories present themselves, you should be hearing from me more frequently.

Here’s to the next 50,000 views and the many good stories everyone will enjoy to help me get there.

Run well my Friends,

Andy

100000 Views and Counting!

100000 views and counting for Omni Running!

I began this blog in August of 2014 at the urging of a few friends.

At the time I didn’t know much about social media, barely used Facebook and had never heard of WordPress.

The one thing I did know about was running. In 2014 I had been running for eleven years and had learned a lot.

Getting to 100000 views

In the first few years this blog averaged around 7,000 views per year.

Pretty modest by just about anyone’s standards.

But for a guy just starting out, it was exciting to know that someone was reading what I wrote. I could write what ever I thought, hit publish and at least a few dozen or perhaps a hundred people would read my post!

The best part was that a few times people actually talked to me about a blog post. It was amazing! I wrote something, someone thought about it and wanted to talk about it.

Even more amazing were the handful of times people told me they were moved by what I wrote. Other times, I could tell by the tone of their voice that I had struck a chord with them.

My words made someone feel something! Wow.

Was I becoming a writer?

When people told me they felt something when they read a post, I began to feel like a writer.

It’s one thing to write something provocative and make people feel pissed off.

It’s another to write about a run and have someone feel like they were with me at every turn. My words allowed them to join me on a little journey and see the run through my eyes.

I have always enjoyed writing.

In college one of my professors said she could tell that I liked to write. Somehow that felt embarrassing and neither one of us followed up on that comment.

Writing takes practice, patience and persistence, and in college I only wrote to pass in papers.

When I started my blog in 2014 I was undisciplined and had to find my way.

I had to learn how to write for social media which is different than writing papers for college. Google doesn’t seem to like complex sentences or paragraphs with more than three of those rambling run on strings of words all jumbled together that hopefully convey an idea or a feeling.

I learned to be concise and edit.

A blog is like a magazine

When you pick up a magazine you pretty much know what you are going to read about.

While most magazines have the occasional article outside of their strike zone, they mainly swing at topics right over the plate. A good magazine goes after the curveballs and fastballs, but never too far outside of the strike zone.

This focus allows them to build authority on their subject matter and attract readers who know they will get quality writing in a specific area of interest.

While some blogs are basically open diaries, most blogs have a focus just like a magazine.

A blog can be a great way to vent, and I’ve certainly done that on occasion. But unless you plan to vent most of the time and do it well, it’s difficult to build a reader base. Endless rants get old quickly.

My focus is running and I try to stick with that 95% of the time.

Part of being a writer is learning to convey ideas and feelings. Part of being a writer is knowing when to rein yourself in and when to let it rip.

As a solo writer, a blogger has to be their own editorial board and call strikes and balls.

But enough about baseball.

The Turning

In 2016 I started to think more like a blogger and not just a writer.

That meant thinking more about what I was going to write. I used to just sit down after a race and start writing.

I still did plenty of that in 2016, but I began to think about subjects that my readers and I would be interested in.

While people enjoyed running a race with me, I also knew that runners wanted to learn about things and get some advice.

The advice part was why my friends encouraged me to start a blog.

I looked at my most popular posts and thought about subjects that I was interested in. A writer has to be interested in their subject.

In 2016 I turned from writing about anything and began to focus more on running.

I began to think about topics, words and how a post looked.

My Most Popular Posts

Some of my early blog posts were a mess. I think any blogger who looks at their early work would say the same thing.

100000 views, top omnirunning posts — Blog views through April 2021

In 2015 I wrote “New England Marathons Fall“. This turned out to be a popular subject.

In 2016, a year after I wrote it, I made the first updates and haven’t stopped. This type of post requires frequent updates and now it is my most popular post with over 18,000 views.

In October of 2016 I wrote “What distance can my child run“. This turned out to be another popular subject and this post has had over 13,000 views.

This type of post doesn’t require frequent updating. But as I have become a better writer and found additional resources I have edited this post also.

These two posts helped pushed my annual views from 8,330 in 2017 to 19,211 in 2018.

My posts on nutrition “Fig Newtons and the Glycemic Index” and “Glucose and the Endurance Athlete” have also turned out to be very popular.

Moving Beyond 100000 Views

When races were shut down in 2020, a lot of my subject matter went away.

There weren’t any race recaps to write and not as many people were looking for a Marathon in New England in October.

I really thought my numbers would drop off, but they reached a new high of 24,062 in 2021.

Like any writer I would like to speak to a larger audience. As a blogger I would like to have more engagement with my readers as well.

The challenge is to remain true to my voice, write about what interests me and attract that audience.

I don’t go out of my way to attract followers and I avoid the gimmicks. I try to write well and have a presentable blog and posts.

Hopefully in 2021 I will find another topic that is popular

Black Holes and Dead Ends The New Millennium

A few strategies I use to manage my social media and email accounts to avoid being sucked into the black hole.

Managing Black Holes and Dead Ends

By “black hole” I mean those things in our life that suck up our valuable time. Here I’m specifically referring to email and social media.

I have multiple email accounts full of unread emails. At the end of 2019 I spent considerable time cleaning those accounts. I purged a lot, cancelled subscriptions and read a lot.

The reading a lot is the real time suck. It’s easy to go down the list and delete messages that are months old or that have uninteresting subject lines.

But some emails are from bloggers who write great articles full of interesting and valuable information.

Often, I end up saving them to a mailbox with the intent of getting back to read them the next time I have a few hours.

This is a bad habit. If I didn’t read the email months ago, how likely am I to go back and read it in two more months. Not very likely.

I have gotten better at letting these older emails go.

If I don’t keep up with the reading and purging, these accounts fill up quickly again.

So Many Accounts so Little Time

I have email accounts to receive special offers and newsletters from companies. The problem with many companies is that they send multiple emails each day.

Do they really think anyone is reading these emails?

Those accounts are easy to clean out and I get to them about once a week.

For work I have two email accounts and subscribe to multiple newsletters and web sites that send me stuff every day.

Getting curated articles sent to me is the only way to keep up with industry developments. I’m in healthcare IT, so things are changing rapidly.

I get sucked into the black hole with these emails when they are highly relevant to my work. Being in the office it’s easy to look up and realize that it’s time to get back to work.

As a blogger, I have more email accounts than most people. I can’t possibly keep up with all of them all of the time. I follow almost 300 bloggers and businesses and receive a tremendous volume of emails from them.

The pull of this black hole is even stronger. I would not have followed these bloggers unless I thought they had something to say.

As a blogger, I spend a lot of time at the keyboard and productive writing time is limited.

To manage the black holes and remain productive, I’ve come up with a few strategies.

Strategies to manage Black Holes

To get anything done and still have time for work and a life, you have to actively manage your email and social media accounts.

Here are my strategies.

Monitor several email accounts daily on your phone. When I have a minute I go into an account and clean it up. I’ve found that if I spend 5 minutes a day on these accounts I can keep them under control.

By segregating different types of emails into different accounts or mailboxes, it can be quite easy to clean up the commercial emails.

The account where I receive blogger email is tougher to clear on my phone, but if I can read or clear 20% during the day I have fewer distractions during my productive writing time.

Content Specific Email Accounts

As I mentioned before, I have email accounts for specific purposes.

I have a few email accounts that I use for Omni Running. To keep these accounts under control I manage them daily.

These are high volume accounts, but receive mostly high interest emails. I have very few general interest emails going to these accounts.

I can’t possibly manage these accounts on 5 minutes a day. My strategy is to scrub these accounts about every three months. I do manage to clean out some email daily, but the deluge is too much to keep up with.

My work email accounts receive a barrage of email daily. I manage to keep on top of these in real time as it is part of my job.

Many emails are from customers and colleagues and need to be addressed in a timely fashion. Other emails are from vendors, partners or industry web sites and newsletters.

It’s the industry related emails that are the real black hole here. Many have fascinating articles and information that I need for my job.

My strategy here is to only read what is truly important to my work. Interesting is not enough, it has to be important for my work. I don’t have time to be entertained or learn about things not central to my work.

By segregating different types of email into different accounts, it is possible to keep the clutter out of your main email accounts and still see the interesting but non essential emails.

Strategies to manage Dead Ends

404 Error, dead ends — Image Credit – techably.com

This brings me to Dead Ends.

I follow close to 300 bloggers. Over any three month period several bloggers will abandon their blog.

New bloggers often decide blogging isn’t for them or they don’t have the time to write, so they shut things down.

Some blogs are removed and some are just abandoned. While I no longer receive emails from these blogs, sometimes I’ll go to a blog to see what’s new.

When I find an abandoned blog, a dead end, I’ve just wasted valuable keyboard time.

Blogs turn into dead ends for other reasons also. Sometimes I loose interest in the blogger’s topic or they change direction. Until I click “unfollow” their emails continue to flow into my mail box.

It’s easy to delete the bloggers who gave up. The ones I’ve lost interest in are harder to delete. I’m always hopeful they will have something interesting to say, and don’t want to miss it. I usually give these guys a few passes, but eventually they get cut.

When I do my email clean up, I delete the abandoned blogs from my feed also.

Twitter Black Holes and Dead Ends

Twitter can be another massive time suck. The torrent of tweets never slows. Not only do you get tweets from people you follow, you also get tweets from people who pay to get in front of you.

A few times a year I go in and clean out tweeters I’ve lost interest in. I also clean out the hyper active tweeters and the dormant tweeters. Some twitter accounts can send 20 or more tweets a day!

To manage the Tweeters I do want to follow I’ve been using lists to keep things organized. By grouping Tweeters it makes it easier to find tweets relevant to what I’m interested in or working on.

See my post on using Twitter Lists.

Black Holes and Dead Ends

With limited time to read and write, I’ve had to develop and practice these strategies. I’m still buried, but I am actively trying to manage the situation so that I can spend more time reading what really interests me, and of course trying to write what really interests you.

Are you buried in emails?
How many email accounts do you have?
Do you un-follow and un-subscribe?

Read well my friends and watch out for black holes!

Andy

Abandoned Properties

Once a year I go through each of my social media accounts. Every time I do this I find Abandoned Properties.

What are Social Media Abandoned Properties?

You’ve probably guessed what I mean already. Abandoned properties are accounts where the author has stopped writing, updating or maintaining their account. You may be one of these people. When I started blogging almost seven years ago I had a free WordPress.com site. Because a WordPress.com site is free most people start there. And because it’s free anyone with an idea or opinion can set up their own soap box and have at it. Depending on your comfort with technology, you can have a blog set up in under 30 minutes. The WordPress.com environment is a free-wheeling and diverse universe to exist in. There are blogs on everything and anything that you can imagine. It is the epitome of free speech. There are the usual rules about hateful speech, exploitation, plagiarism etc. Other than that you can be as brilliant or stupid as you want. And there is plenty of both! Over time, many bloggers decide that they weren’t really writers after all, ran out of things to say or just don’t have the time to keep up with it.

Social Media Clean Out 2019

This year I went through all of my WordPress followers. Many of them followed me over from my WordPress.com site to Omnirunning.com which is built on WordPress.org. WordPress.org allows you to have your own address, such as omnirunning.com. It also allows you to sell things such as My First 5K medals, display frames or pretty much anything you want. Some Fortune 500 companies have their sites on WordPress.org. I discovered that many of my old blogging buddies have moved on. When the last post was from a few years ago, I could tell the property was abandoned. Others had messages saying they had closed up shop. Some old blog addresses were up for sale. More than one final post was written by someone dealing with a serious disease such as cancer. Those were sad to read. I hope those writers decided life needed to be spent elsewhere. A lot of Twitter accounts were also abandoned. Probably about 20%. Some of these were for events such as 5K races that have been cancelled. But a lot of them were personal Twitter accounts where someone just stopped tweeting.

How to Save Your Favorite Blog

Most of you are casual consumers of social media. Most of us are. There are plenty of corporations cranking out millions of words, info-graphics, memes and cat videos each day to keep you amused and sometimes informed. There are also millions of bloggers out there pouring their heart and soul into their work, just like a musician or craftsman. Many of them feel they are speaking in an empty public square or yelling into the void. For some writers that is fine. Writing let’s them vent and they don’t care if anyone reacts. They may prefer it. Then there are the bloggers who feel they have an insight, information or advice that they feel is worth sharing. For those writers, hearing crickets after they hit “Enter” is hard to take. From my own experience I know that some blog posts take hours to write over several days. Very few are spontaneous unedited articles. For anyone hoping to engage in dialogue about a subject close to their hearts the deafening silence can be discouraging.

What you can do

If you are reading articles on Facebook or 280 character excerpts on Twitter, try clicking through to the blog post. Clicking through to the actual blog post gives you the opportunity to like a post and even leave a comment. Leaving any indication that you actually read a post is very encouraging for most bloggers. Going to a writer’s blog also allows you to explore their other posts. Often you only see the latest post on Twitter or Facebook. Google and other search engines show you the most popular posts. But they may not show what is of most interest to you. As a reader you should take an extra minute to click through to the full article on the blogger’s site. I think lack of engagement is what causes many bloggers to close up shop. Why bother if no one is reading?

What can I do?

While I was reviewing other blogger’s sites, sometimes I saw a link to my blog listed on their “Blog Roll”. When I clicked through to my blog, I saw what I knew already: my home page needs to be rebuilt. Asking you to follow me is not enough. I need to make clearer what my blog is about. I also need to make it easier to follow my blog. On my home page I don’t have any options to follow me! On my blog page I only have two ways for you to follow me. As a blogger I can’t assume that everyone who comes to my blog knows anything about how this works. 99% of this stuff is still a mystery to me. How can I expect my readers to know what “follow me” means? I think some people are afraid to follow a blogger. Some of this is probably due to every store you’ve ever been to sending you 10 emails every day. I just can’t get my self to unsubscribe from CVS or Best Buy. I might miss something! All of us are buried in email already, who wants more email? Unlike CVS, most bloggers only post a few times a week. Most of us post once a week. It takes a lot of work! So if you follow a blogger, don’t worry about being inundated with email from them. If you do follow a prolific blogger you can always un-follow. You can mute a Twitter account also. Read well my Friends! Andy

Time for a Change

Time for a Change?

For the past few years I’ve had a newsletter for people who followed this blog. Most people follow my blog on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

For the people who subscribed to the newsletter, I would send an email for each new post. In addition to a link to the latest blog post, the email newsletter had additional “content” as it is called.

Basically I provided links to running articles that I thought were interesting. Often I would add comments on the latest blog post.

I appreciate everyone who subscribes to this newsletter.

Change for more time

It can take a few hours or a few days to write a blog post. Even for a race recap, it takes time to pull together the details and make sure I have them basically correct.

I also updated the newsletter for each blog post by adding some new information and comments, to make it interesting, entertaining and hopefully worth your time.

I know everyone is inundated with emails and Facebook posts and newsletters from major publications like Runners World and even Marathon Sports.

I had hoped to grow the list of subscribers and turn this newsletter into something. I’m not sure what I had in mind, but something.

Unfortunately it never turned into much of anything. Few people subscribed and fewer ever opened the email they received. I’m inundated also, I absolutely get it.

The time I put into the newsletter is time I take away from writing the blog and working on my business. Like everyone else, I only get 24 hours in a day.

So, to get a few hours a month back, I’ve decided to discontinue the newsletter.

If you are not doing so already, you can follow my blog on Facebook, Twitter. Pinterest or through your WordPress account.

Here are my links:

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

Run well my Friends!

Andy

5 reasons to join my email list

Most people follow Omni Running through Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

Each week, usually on Monday, everyone gets a notice that I’ve posted something new.

Some posts take an hour to write and many take a day or more. Some bloggers write everyday or several times week. On my previous blog I posted several days a week. Most of us don’t have time to read all of those articles and I found I don’t have time to write well that frequently.

Most bloggers have an email list and most of us are on many email lists already. It could be your bank or favorite restaurant or shop sending you specials and promos.

My Email List

Few of us want to sign up for more email. Our in boxes are jam packed everyday with offers we really don’t care about. I subscribe to a lot of newsletters and many other mailing lists, so I get it.

People on my email list get an email each time I post a new article. As I said above, I usually only write one blog post a week. They get more email from CVS than they do from me.

In appreciation for the people who sign onto my email list, each week I add something extra. Subscribers get a news letter which allows me to add links to articles that I think they will be interested in.

Each week I update the links that I think runners would be interested in. I leave some links on the news letter for weeks or months depending on how relevant they are. Articles on running in the heat or running at night have stayed on my side bar for long periods of time.

My blog and newsletter do promote the “My First 5K” medal and my running medal display frames, however, I try to keep the focus on things all runners are interested in.

You have seen my lists of local races and re-caps of races I have run. I hope the re-caps are fun to read. I also hope they help you get a feel for the race and help you decide if you want to sign up for the race next year.

5 articles Omni Running Subscribers saw this summer

I include links to articles that are professionally written and that would benefit little from my efforts. Sometimes they are simply links to information that you can use such as lists or info graphics. These are easy to read and info-dense. Some links are to 500 word (or more) articles, but I try to link to quality articles on running and race management.

There is so much “content” out there that most of us cannot keep up. Many articles are what are we refer to as “click bait.” Bloggers try to get you to open their blog post so they can get paid for your clicks. I try not to link to these articles and my own blog posts are not like that at all.

When someone buys a medal or a display frame, that supports my business. I don’t make money when you visit my blog or web site, so you will never see a clutter of ads that get in the way of what interested you in the first place. I also do not make money when you click on an article that I have curated for you.

I’m trying to provide a resource of curated articles that are relevant to your interests; running, fitness, managing races and having a fun life.

Here are five articles I linked to this summer that I think are pretty cool. If you think these additional articles are interesting, join my email list and let me serve up some good reads for you!

5 reasons to join my email list

How to Beat the Heat This article from HalfMarathons.net first showed up on my newsletter on July 18^th and is still there. This article from 2015 offers five simple ideas to help you beat the heat. You probably do most of these things already. The great thing about this article is that it will probably remind you of a few other things to make your running more comfortable and safer.

Sun Safety Tips was added on June 14^th. This is a link to seven common sense ways to stay safe in the sun. Not a lengthy article but good advice from the Melanoma Foundation of New England. You probably do some of these things, but could be doing more to protect yourself and your family.

Beer Miles Runners love beer and the Beer Mile type races have become popular, if not quite mainstream yet. BEERFIT had a series of Brew Mile races across the country. It may have been one one-time series as their web site is gone and their Facebook page is dated. Google “Beer Mile” and you are sure to find a race near you.

Not every link is to a running web site or article. Boozie Ice Cream Recipes is from liquor.com, one of the newsletters I subscribe to. They send me emails all about cocktails and alcohol. It’s not always about how to make an Old Fashioned or a perfect Martini, sometimes it’s about how liquor is made and sometimes it’s a fun article about ice cream! Life isn’t just about running and beer!

You’re going to love these recipes, unless you’re trying to drop some weight for your fall marathon! Sorry.

What to Wear This article from Runnersworld showed up July 11^th in the newsletter itself. All of the above links were in the sidebar. Sometimes I write a brief article on a subject that I don’t discuss on my blog. This link is to a guide to picking the correct running gear based on your planned run and anticipated conditions.

If you’re not on my mailing list you miss out on these asides, tips and other fun stuff.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to “Join the run” and join my mailing list?

Here’s a 6th reason to join. Facebook decides what you see in your feed. So you may not see my posts at all. How about Twitter? I see well over 1,000 tweets a day. If you follow me on Twitter I’m probably getting lost in the torrent of tweets.

Some race re-caps just don’t belong on LinkedIn, so I don’t post them there. Pinterest is cool, but I don’t post a lot of photos to Pinterest.

Join the run and never miss a post.

Run well my friend!

Andy