Sunday, September 18, 2011

7 Links Throwback Post

How thrilled was I to discover on Friday that the always lovely Beth over at discom-BOB-ulated Running nominated me to participate in a throwback post! I had a lot of fun reading her older posts again and am excited to dig back through my own. So what is this about? Thanks for asking. :)

Here are the rules:

1. Blogger is nominated to take part
2. Blogger publishes his/her 7 links on his/her blog – 1 link for each category
3. Blogger nominates up to 5 more bloggers to take part.
4. These bloggers publish their 7 links and nominate another 5 more bloggers


I want to preface this by saying that although I've had this blog for about 4 years, I didn't always participate in the bloggy world with it, exactly. Only my closest friends and family knew about it at first, so the categories of today's post that refer to popular posts and whatnot, I'm just going to use my posts from the past year and a half or so. 

Post #1: My most beautiful post
For being pretty, this post of my park in the fall. For being emotionally beautiful, I don't know. I'm not good with these things. But, without going into really old posts, probably this one. 

Post #2: My most popular post By page views, easily this very old post. Blogger tells me that I get traffic to this post from people searching online, probably for the fake Eleanor Roosevelt quote. By comments, my most popular post was Cleveland Marathon Part 2. The support of so many friends and family meant the world to me. It was a tough race, but I held it together enough to PR (by 11 minutes!) and get home in one piece. I also got to meet a lot of fantastic people that weekend, including BoB, Jodi, Dave, and Jenn, and got to see Morgan and Spike again, among other people. I actually re-read this post the other day because I've long struggled with that race, how I dealt with it, and how I feel about it now. I think the recap is pretty fair, in the grand scheme of things--but rest assured, it's a race (and a PR) I will beat. 

Post #3: My most controversial post
I'm not sure I have a whole lot that's controversial on here. I think the post I got the most blow-back from was this one, where I blogged about running while 7+ months pregnant. This is definitely from the era before I knew other bloggers or participated in the blog world, so most of you have never read this. But everyone I knew in real life from RunningFirst to my Mom gave me crap about it at the time. 

Post #4: My most helpful post
I think my product review posts are the most helpful. I've fielded a lot of questions from female friends about how to shop for an adequate sports bra (see product review here). More recently I reviewed some Balega socks and got some good feedback from people. My TnT buddy Meredith has the same problem I do, borderline bruising on the bottom of the foot even in perfectly good but low-cushion running shoes. The socks were a good find for me, and hopefully for others (see here). 

Post #5: A post whose success surprised me
This one from August 2010, because I was feeling kind of sorry for myself when I posted it. It was right after we moved here and I was missing my friends back in Illinois, and having people to run with. 

Post #6: A post I felt didn't get the attention it deserved
May 22, 2010--a date I will never forget. I ran a 5 mile trail race that morning and was in the ER for an emergency appendectomy by dinner! Running related and super dramatic. What more do you want?! Haha :)

Post #7: The post I'm most proud of
This is hard, because it's less the post itself and more the race it recapped that I'm so proud of--my first marathon, Detroit 2009. My training cycle had been badly interrupted by injury, to the point that I wasn't sure I would be able to race. But with help from my Teammates I hatched a plan, stuck to it, gutted it out when the going got tough, and finished with a time I was thrilled with. It's easily the post I re-read the most often and even still sometimes get emotional reading, particularly about the end of the race. 


Now for my nominations for other bloggers to re-share their posts:
1. RunningFirst, as a welcome back to training and fundraising for the Team
2. RunJessRun because, even though she's not the most frequent blogger in the world, I always enjoy her posts
3. Marlene at Mission to a(nother) Marathon, for being one of my favorite blogs



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