I have never been entirely happy with the banner on this site. I’ve always wanted something simpler, but it’s remarkably hard to find good pictures in such a wide aspect ratio, so my run to the finish line of the ITU Long Distance Worlds in Perth remains. In recent months this image of me as an athlete has felt increasingly irrelevant and unreflective of the content of the blog as has the navigation below it: ‘About Russell’, ‘Coaching’, ‘Schedule’ and ‘Results’. Both the schedule and results pages are gathering dust during my indefinite sabbatical from racing.
At the beginning of March I had a decision to make: to race the Brighton marathon or not? It appeared my running was improving, but I had yet to build any notable volume. There were positive to my training, the niggles and strains of earlier months had cleared and I was running comfortably. A mixed picture leaving me with a dilemma – I would be able to complete, but I would not be prepared to compete. I had no interest in that. I decided not to race.
Which brings me back to this site. A graph seems apropos.
It has been five years since this blog began – I missed the anniversary last month – and in that time its focus and purpose have changed. As the graph shows it’s no longer about me, in fact this year fewer than 10% of posts relate to my own training, racing or life. The predominant topics of the last twelve months have been Ironman training, analysis of data and most recently Ironman statistics, and that’s likely to remain the focus.
To reflect this I’ve updated the navigation to link to category specific collections of my posts. Ironman Stats gathers together all the posts analysing Ironman results and trends. Ironman Analysis collects those that examine training and racing data, and how to interpret and use this information. And Ironman Training consists of posts discussing preparation for Ironman in more general terms. Regardless of topic every post will still appear on the main page, but these subsections allow visitors to explore the subject they are most interested in.
Few come here to read about my lack of training or racing, but personal posts will occasionally appear. I’ll continue to train for pleasure, without emphasis; should I find a race that sufficiently motivates me, my own training might provide suitable subject matter again. I can’t say when. In the meantime much as statistics increasingly drives my traffic I intend to put a bit more emphasis on the analysis and coaching aspects of the blog again. But until I find a suitable picture of me coaching, the current banner will remain.
