It’s been a while since I called myself a runner. After running consecutive marathons in ’08 and ’09, I took a long hiatus. Turns out being awake all hours with a sleepless infant isn’t conducive to distance running. I tried coming back in classic couch-to-marathon style last year, only to injure myself about halfway through training. After months of physical therapy, I still didn’t feel quite right, but that didn’t stop me from trying again this year, only to meet the same end. It’s been frustrating since I still want to run that Boston qualifier I just missed in freezing temps in ’08.
A few weeks ago I started running again. Just three miles, five times a week. No goal but mileage. It’s taking me back to a time before I had a Garmin watch, before I micromanaged every step I took on a run. I’m just out there in the cool fall air putting one foot in front of the other. I’m feeling better than I have in years. Turns out running without a race in sight is helping me build the base I need to get back on track.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I signed up for a half marathon at the end of March. I couldn’t help myself. I need a reason to stay motivated during these long, dark winter months running alongside the Cooper River. In the meantime, I’ll be logging miles at a snail’s pace until I feel good enough to push toward my real goal of qualifying for Boston.
What’s the Future of Blogging?
Two interesting things about blogging lately:
First from Marco Arment
Writers: You don’t need Medium. You can host your own blog on your own domain with lots of other tools and hosts. Be your own “platformâ€.
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) July 31, 2013
Then from Robert Scoble on why he’s using G+ and Facebook for blogging.
I tend to agree with the former, but I’d much rather do what Scoble is doing. Why? Because it’s much lighter weight than coming here to write AND it doesn’t have the audience built-in that other social networks do. I see that Share button when I’m in Gmail and think, “That would be so easy!”
What’s keeping me from making the switch? Audience. Sure, I have never been good about writing every day, but WordPress makes it easy for people to find stuff I’ve written about since I started blogging. Google+ is getting better at helping people find me in the context of other search results, but it’s not quite the same.
But why not LinkedIn? Tumblr? Medium? They’re all interesting places. I often think I should use LinkedIn as my default social network and share out to Twitter from it!
Put another way: why shouldn’t I switch to G+ or Medium, you know, beyond owning my platform?
To me, the long tail benefits are worthwhile. WordPress is easily bookmarked and shared. Google+ is a neat little ecosystem, but that’s just it: it wants to be self-contained in a different way that most other networks.
The Principled Purge
If you haven’t already seen it, Ian Rogers’ blog post on pruning Twitter is quite good. He followed me back when I wrote about digital music; I don’t write about that anymore, ergo he unfollowed me. It makes all the sense in the world. Why is it so hard?
I wrote Unfollowing Is Hard back in 2012. I pared back to 500 people. It felt like an accomplishment. Could I ever get under 200 like Ian? Doubtful. Even if I followed his lead and turned Twitter into real-time RSS, I’d find myself in the same fix. I pulled over 800 blogs into RSS at my peak! I’m a sucker for information. I just can’t help it.
Worse, I’m sentimental. There are people I’ve been following since I joined. We’ve had lots of laughs. They’ve watched my son grow up. How could I leave them now if they’ve not graduated to Facebook friend status?
That’s what I like most about Ian’s post: clearly delineated friend profiles that identify where they should go. His birthday rule is the best. He transformed Facebook into Path. He just unfriended his way to it!
I call it the principled purge. This isn’t just rip it up and start again; these are malleable platforms and we should evolve as our use cases change. And if you get scared you can always cheat with a handy list!
Low — Do You Know How to Waltz?
Just when I thought I couldn’t love Low any more, they go ahead and play a 30 minute version of “Do You Know How to Waltz?” It’s a polarizing piece of music, but I’m going to join a legion of drone fans and request it when they play Philadelphia Saturday night at World Cafe.
Eleanor Friedberger — Personal Record
I can’t believe I once haggled with Eleanor over the price of a Fiery Furnaces t‑shirt in the front of the Khyber…and that she accepted $10 instead of $15. Even harder to believe it was that long ago that the Fiery Furnaces were critical darlings, playing packed rooms and mesmerizing fans with Matt’s musicianship and Eleanor’s swagger.
It’s great to see Eleanor break out and make really lovely pop records that should appeal to a broader audience than probably hears them. There’s no standout track to these ears after a few listens, but I’m o.k. with that. I still enjoy putting a record on on Sunday morning, sipping coffee, flipping through the Home section on my Flipboard. Personal Record is perfect for that.
I know Matt Friedberger would hate to have his music described as something that doesn’t demand more from the listener, but there’s something to be said for music that doesn’t bounce around like a child throwing a tantrum. His solo stuff was never that challenging in the way he believed it to be. And the manner in which he drove fans away from the Fiery Furnaces tarnished the band’s legacy irrevocably.
Personal Record finds Eleanor Friedberger coming into her own after her equally lush and lovely Last Summer.