Flashes of Panic

I am periodically amused whenever I look at the Bloglines subscriptions of people subscribed to my feed(s) who have their own subscriptions public. (Not that there are many of you.) The thing that amuses me is that when the feeds are organized in folders, this feed is nearly always in the “running” folder (if there is one) and not in the “geeky stuff” folder—even if the person in question has both kinds of folders. (Sometimes it’s just in the “people” folder, which is fine.) This is amusing to me because I write so little about running here, and when I do, it’s more likely to be about the sport in general rather than my own running (which has been rather sparse in the last two years.)

I thought about this as I realized how many feeds I read which belong to people I know through running, and thought about making my own little “running” folder. But in fact, I don’t read the feeds because they’re about running; I read them because they’re about people who I know through running. That sounds like a quibble, but it’s an important distinction to me.

I don’t read much about training theory, nutrition, or injury prevention, online or in print. I burned out on that stuff five years ago, and I no longer care very much. (This stuff is not an exception, but the resolution of that paradox is outside the scope of this post.) I have a few feeds which I have dropped into my “news” folder which are about the sport, not the activity. (I’ll unpack that distinction some other time, if anyone cares.) I’d rather read about people, and for the most part I write the sort of posts I’d like to read.

I imagine more people would read here if this was a Running Blog, or a Technology Blog, or even an Education Blog. But I’m not (just) any of those things, so neither is this site.

But if you wish to think of it with any of the above tags, feel free; apparently all the people who’ve bookmarked this site in del.icio.us have merely tagged it “blog.”

Now Playing: This Bouquet from Not A Pretty Girl by Ani DiFranco