Four Years Young

Whoops, I nearly missed my own anniversary. Not the wedding one, I am not that silly, no the anniversary I nearly missed was the one for this nice little cosy slice of the internet I have for myself. That's right, as of yesterday my blog is 4 years old.

I have to say the last four years have been pretty eventful ones.

In the last four years of this blog I have completed 16 Half Ironman races, a couple of Ironman and a handful of Olympic Distances. I have gone from being an age group triathlete to getting my pro license and racing with it for a couple of years. I have torn some ligaments, irritated some discs, fractured some bones and wonkified my heart. I have been on countless flights all over Australia and and a few other countries too. I have been to more places and met more people than I would ever have dreamed of. I have got to use great products from wonderful brands and developed solid relationships with them. I have met great people and made firm friends from all over the world. I have had four of the best years of my life.

And this blog has been there to document it all. It has been a real blast.

Over the four years I have made almost 1400 posts and they have been viewed about 150,000 times or so. I have had people hit the blog from all over the world, but mostly Australia and the US. I have had folks thank me for my race reviews and product information. I have had people reach out to me and tell me that the blog got them out the door, or back in the pool. I have had others message me and thank me for putting thoughts into the words they were struggling with. Each of these messages has been a special buzz for me and they capture perfectly the reasons why I started this blog and why I have been writing it for four years.

When I started I thought, "I am going to write a blog that will try and give the useful triathlon information that I haven't been able to find". The blog has grown a little in scope since then, but that is still the basic idea, provide people with the information they are after but can't find. I have always said that if one person finds one useful thing on the blog, then it is worth it. Well, more than one person has found useful things and the effort has been more than worth it, multiple times over. I have loved every minute of it.

Now, after four years I am faced with the question of what next. Does the blog have another four years, and if it does, what will they look like? To be honest I am not sure what the answer to that is because I am still figuring out that answer myself. I do know that I am not ready to let the blog go yet that is for sure. I plan to keep on writing about triathlon and my sporting life in general for a little while yet, whatever it ends up looking like. Whether the future holds a return to recreational racing, whether it looks like coaching, whether it is going to be something else entirely, I don't really know. I am really looking forward to finding out though. And sharing the journey.