I'm having to learn fast. This is my first experience with y'know, proper blogging software but what we'll end up with is something much better than we had at the old RunningCommentary. (At some point, I'll hyperlink those words to an archive -- but I've not yet created it. First things first.)
Plan this morning is to mail the people who had a 'training diary' on the old site, and invite them to join me here. At the moment, I feel like Andy Dufresne, beavering away on that boat on the beach at Zihuatanejo.
Dear Red. If you're reading this, you've gotten out. And if you've come this far, maybe you're willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don't you? I could use a good man to help me get my project on wheels. I'll keep an eye out for you and the chessboard ready. Remember, Red. Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. I will be hoping that this letter finds you, and finds you well. Your friend. Andy.
There'll be some resistance, and we may lose a few, but so be it. This is the answer, trust me fellas.
Onto more practical stuff. We have a blank canvas here. I've created categories to match the previous members. In time, I hope we'll be adding new names with fresh thinking. I've disabled the default subject categories for the moment, but am open to feedback on whether to restore some. It strikes me that we should have a category for Race Reports. (Note that a post can be in more than one category simultaneously.)
Some questions: all the material on the old forum. What to do with it? It won't be discarded, that's for sure. Do we keep it in an archive, preserved as it was? Or do we copy and repost some of it here? In particular, I'm anxious that the race reports should be preserved. For me, race reports are what it's all about. They are where people write their best, most memorable stuff. They also provide a valuable resource for other runners researching whether to do a particular race, or for those trying to prepare for it.
We have the facility here to store pictures, and to create additional pages to link to. We can pretty much replicate the old site if we wanted to, though I'd prefer to think of it as a fresh start. There are all sorts of TypePad widgets available to add features, like calendars. But more of those later. Let's chisel away at the basic shape first.
Some important points:
I'm not the ringmaster here. Yes, I'm the one with the admin permissions at present because someone has to. But I've no problem with the idea of sharing that privilege/responsibilty with others. It's not megalomania that makes it like this -- just sheer practicality. It's not good practice to have a lot of admin users because toes get trodden on (usually accidentally), and mistakes can be made.
When it comes to posting rights and prominence, we are all equal. Or rather, we are as equal as we want to be. It's determined by your literary fecundity.
We want new members, though it will take a while for people to "get" RunningCommentary, and what we are about. If you read us for a while, you'll eventually decide whether to join us -- or to what extent. If you want to become another Guest Author with the same rights as the rest of us,
mail me . If you prefer to post the odd comment instead, go right ahead.
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