Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Lonely

It seems that running can be a very solitary and lonely activity.

Sometimes that's a good thing.

Sometimes it gets a little, well...lonely.

Sometimes writing about running gets lonely too.

As I was finishing nursing school and beginning my nursing career I blogged about my progress. And apparently a male's voice was just what the nurse bloggers world needed. Maybe it was because I didn't dignify the murse stereotypes. Maybe some of my experiences were actually as significant as they felt. Maybe my writing style appealed to that particular audience. Regardless of the reason, all I did was comment on a few other nursing blogs and the silly thing exploded. When I finally took the blog offline under pressure from hospital administration, it was getting about 10k views a month--all without advertising. I was getting requests from industry magazines for articles, and asked if I'd review items.  Now that isn't huge as far as website traffic goes, but it was a cozy little corner of the internet.

I'm finding the running blogger community a little more difficult to break into. I don't necessarily want this blog to blow up--it took a lot of time and energy to keep up with. And really, it's not the reason I started writing this blog. It was mostly to document my journey, for myself. But I'd be lying if I said that I didn't hope to make a few friends, become part of a community, maybe write something that a few people enjoyed reading.

Lest I sound ungrateful, there are a few people reading, and commenting. And I appreciate it so much. Thank you! The encouragement and support has been invaluable as I try to push forward in this unfamiliar territory.

You see, the most structured I'd ever gotten with running was following a basic Couch to 5k program that didn't even work that well for me. So all of this is very new to me, and I'm a little afraid I'm going to do something stupid and hurt myself or get in my own way. I was hoping to assimilate into the running blogging community and learn the (or "a") right way to do things.

But so far I've asked one seemingly knowledgeable and popular run blogger, who specializes in supplements and similar products, for advice regarding a protein supplement. I was ignored.

Twice.

My current nutrition dilemma regarding my calories, I've tried asking a pair of popular podcasters, a sports dietician, and a sports medicine medical doctor who all blog or have groups on Facebook.

No response.

I wasn't asking for a full blown nutritional consult. I was just looking for someone with more experience and success than me to reassure me that I wasn't going to blow my weight loss by eating enough calories to run. Is it an inappropriate question? Am I crossing some unknown boundary?

It's not the end of the world. And I'm definitely not quitting running over it, or giving up on losing weight. Because ultimately those are things I'm doing for myself, and those I love.  And I'll likely not stop blogging either.

I guess it makes me kind of sad. Sad to be fumbling around like a dunce trying to figure this out on my own when there seemed to be a thriving blog community out there. I guess I would never dream of ignoring somebody that asked me for help--even if I couldn't help them.

But maybe that's the nurse in me.

What motivates you to blog? Who do you look to to help you figure new things out?