Running Blogs and a List of Things

Whenever I start a new thing, I hunt down several blogs I like about the thing, so I can have encouragement. Either the blogs will give me something to laugh about, something to strive to accomplish, or they will bring new interest to the thing when it gets old. I did this with knitting blogs, librarian/book review blogs when I started at the library, sewing blogs, various fitness blogs, and now running blogs.

The blogs I stick with are written by awesome people I would hang out with in real life, like Stephanie from The Yarn Harlot and Estée from Essie Button. I also keep up with John Green's Tumblr and vlogs, because he is hilarious online and in real life. I'm not giving you a link because if you don't know who John Green is, I don't think we can be friends anymore.

Other things that ruin a good blog are as follows:

1. Pop-up ads or surveys. Anything that restricts my ability to read what I'm currently reading and then follows me as I try to scroll away will make me hate you and never read your blog again.
2. Sites that are too busy. Even if the content is awesome, I will never read your blog if you have long lists of links along both sidebars and no actual blog posts are visible from amongst the chaos.
3. Moving blog headers. I hate these. If your blog header is moving, it's because you want my computer and phone to stop working in order to load your blog header. So no, I will not be reading your blog.
4. Invisible content. This is a made-up name for something that annoys me. It might have a real name. I don't know what the name is, though, so I made one up. This is when you have a title for your blog post. And that's it. Or maybe you have a title and two sentences. And that's all. But it isn't REALLY all, because if you click that little "Read More" link, you get the full post. No. Just...no. If you're going to have your blog set up this way, you MUST give me at LEAST a full paragraph AND a hook before making me click to a new page. Do it the way Smitten Kitchen does things. Seriously. I need a detailed introduction. Otherwise I think your blog post isn't that important to you and it shouldn't be to me.

Note that all of these things are about style and not about content. Yes, there are content deal-breakers, too. I won't read a blog if the blogger doesn't believe in grammar or punctuation. If there is excessive profanity, nope. The list was about things that ruin a GOOD blog. You don't have a good blog if you can't write well. 

I haven't really gotten into running yet, not enough that I want lots of technical jargon or product reviews or race reports. I've found two running blogs that are funny and relatable, which is the most important thing. Here are two running blogs to try, written by two hilarious ladies.

The T-Rex Runner

Even the title of this blog made me laugh. Danielle is hilarious. She began the blog to document her goal, which is to run a marathon in all 50 states. The goal is insane, but she's on track to finish exactly when she intended to, even with the back surgery she's having today. Also this one time she went to Evansville and ran a marathon there, and smelled the tortilla factory, and her reaction was exactly as mine was. Why does something that tastes so good smell so terrible?

Lazy Girl Running

The title of Laura's blog (yes, she's a Laura which automatically makes me like her), is very descriptive of me as a person, so when I saw it on my Google search results for "funny running blogs," I clicked instantly because I thought that the author might understand me and my lifestyle. She's also written for The Guardian, among other publications, and she has a book which I'm absolutely going to read now, as a part of my quest to become overly informed about running.