100th Post!

Wow! I can’t believe that this will be my 100th blog post. Although I’m still considered a “newbie” blogger, I’ve come so far in my fitness and blogging journey since my first entry on January 13, 2011. Back then my blog was called “Femme Fatale: Conquering a Marathon with P90X.” Since then I both conquered the marathon (4:02 – not bad for a first try) and finished P90X with a 11 lb weight loss and huge boost in strength! After accomplishing these goals, I changed the theme and the name of my blog to be more general so that I can continue to blog about triathlons in addition to running races.

Fitness Improvements

I’ve transformed from a half marathoner/cardio junkie to a weight training believer and future Ironman in just 8 1/2 months. Although I worked out consistently 4-5 times a week since I was in high school (ok sometimes just 2-3x/week), I never really had a rhyme or reason to my routine until I started training for events. Training for a half marathon gave me more reason to work out than just to avoid getting fat. Suddenly, I didn’t want to miss a workout out of motivation to finish under my goal time instead.

P90X brought the level up even more since it was a 6 day program and I continued to train for a half and then full marathon while completing it. Suddenly I went from a 4-5 times a week workout rookie to a 7-10 times a week workout machine, oftentimes working out both morning and night and running for up to 3 1/2 hours on a Saturday morning. Many may call this amount of exercise unnecessary, but what it did was plant the seed in my mind that I had the passion, endurance and strength to start competing in triathlons and ultimately, sign up for a full Ironman.

Gaining Writing Confidence

Although this is not my first blog (I wrote a travel blog during my 4 month backpacking trip through Southeast Asia) this is the only blog that I’ve maintained for this long and that has active “followers.” I am still astonished when I look at my daily and monthly statistics and know that I’m getting thousands of views each month. I can’t believe that so many people actually enjoy hearing what I have to say enough to subscribe to my blog posts and have each entry sent to their email box. I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has been supportive of this blog. I appreciate every reader and it means SO much to me.

Just as important as my blog readers, I have been overwhelmed by the feedback and support I have received via Twitter. During my 90 day journey through P90X I received amazing support from my “tweeps,” congratulating me on my accomplishments and encouraging me when I was down. Although I was once a critic of Twitter, thinking it was j ust for people to cronicle their every move, I am now a true believer in Twitter’s power to unite people and spread information effectively and widely. 

One of the responses that has made the biggest impact on me was an email written by a woman who had been following my blog and reached out to wish me luck on the marathon and thank me for inspiring her to get back into her fitness routine after slowing down after having children. I tried to respond to her email but my response was rejected by the server! I hope that she still is a reader and knows how much it meant to me!

Blog Friends?

Another phenomena that has come out of this blog journey is the idea of having virtual friends. I’ve never been one to discount the quality of an online relationship, but the idea that I am actively involved in others lives based on their daily or weekly blog entries was a little foreign to me. I have been actively following and reading about several bloggers lives over these 9 months and I’ve made some great “friends” along the way. Some of these bloggers read my blog and interact with me via comments and tweets, but others don’t. I even received a supportive “Good Luck” card from one of my blog friends, Robyn, from Bird Upon the Wind, before my marathon. I returned the support and sent her a 30th birthday card, despite the fact that she lives in Florida and we’ve never met.

I’ve learned so much from these fellow bloggers and I hope that they have learned from me. The blog world is vastly diverse but ultimately you can find an overwhelming amount of people who share your interests and passions. I look forward to writing the next 100 posts!