Blog Layout Changes

I really wanted this blog to be extremely simple and no frills.  A basic online journal to talk about my venture into barefoot running.  I have another blog, Avocational Singer, and I put a lot of time and energy into it.  I have gotten thousands of hits on my other blog.  In the blog world, that's not very much, but I appreciate that anyone is reading what I have to say at all about singing. I try to create a good product over there.

I am not interested in making any kind of money writing a blog.  I did monetize my Avocational Singer blog because I wanted to check adsense and see how many people were clicking.  Just one of those blogger-obsession things.

But with this blog, I wanted to keep it very bare bones. I also did not want to have to worry about making well-constructed pieces of writing. I just wanted to be able to babble and blather over here.  Now it just so happens that I love to write, so sometimes my first draft comes out somewhat grammatically acceptable.  But over in the other blog, it's not just about singing, it's also about writing. I love to write.  I work a little harder to create pieces of writing over there.

But this barefoot running blog is more just like a sloppy journal.  Of course I'm aware someone might read it, so I try to keep things presentable and correct spelling and things like that.  But I already have a "serious" blog and I just wanted to hang out over here with the running stuff.

So, because of that, I didn't add any fancy boxes, or put any adsense ads over on the side.

But recently, I've been thinking about how much I enjoy reading some of the other blogs by barefoot runners. I also appreciate that some of them have come over here to read and comment on my posts, and how they've been encouraging me.  For that reason, I have decided to share a few blogs I've been enjoying over on the right, and have added the little blog gadget.  Some other beginner barefoot runners may stumble on my humble little paragraphs and they might appreciate finding some of these other blogs.

I have been reading many more barefoot blogs and will probably add more as I go along, but I thought I'd start with the few that I've listed there for now.  I find a lot of interesting blogs to read on these other bloggers' pages, so if you want to read more, visit those pages and look at all the blogs they have listed there and you'll have plenty to keep you busy for a few evenings.

The other thing I've done is put the adsense gadget on the blog because I do want to see the clicks.  In the spirit of barefoot running, I had wanted to "barefoot blog" and not worry about the clicks.  But, I guess I am so used to checking the clicks on my other blog that I will have it here too.

So now that I have explained my little changes. I will go read some other blogs before I go to bed.  Enjoy!

Oh, wait, just one more thing.  One blog over there is by my friend, Robin, called The Athletic Performer.  Robin is an amazing runner.  She has encouraged and helped me a lot.  She is an opera singer who wants to encourage singers to be fit.  She is a high level runner, but because of this "mission" she has, she condescended to run with me last year. I was suffering from my plantar fasciitis at the time, and I was doing run a minute/walk a minute, and she went the whole way with me.  She was wearing Vibram Fivefingers and that was the first time I ever saw anyone in them.

Back when she started her blog, she had Christopher McDougall's  Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen listed as a recommended book on there.  I bought the book for myself and also as a birthday present for my marathon runner sister.  Like so many, it was that book that started me thinking about running barefoot and started me wondering if my shoes were right for me.

Anyway, if you check out Robin's adventures you will be amazed.  She is trying to run a marathon a month this year, and so far she's on target.  In between her marathons she does other events, like some triathlons and some ultras.