HillRunner.com Admin

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

I’m going to attempt to explain what will be going on without getting into too many technical details. Hopefully, this won’t sound intentionally vague. Sorry if it does.

HillRunner.com has been around for over 18 years. In that time, I’ve always built upon what has already existed, not wanting to rock the boat or even temporarily take away things that you have become used to having available unless absolutely necessary.

Unfortunately, that leads to a lot of old code that I wish I could clean up but, without major disruption, feel like I can’t. It also leads to problems in other behind the scenes ways, meaning I spend more time on maintenance and less on either writing for HillRunner.com or developing new features.

I’ve been looking for a few years at making some major coding changes. I’ve also wanted to beef up the security at HillRunner.com in response to security leaks other sites have faced. I don’t think I ask you for information that is all that sensitive but we can’t be too careful these days.

In recent months, certain developments on the Internet have forced my hand and I’m now left with no option other than cause significant disruption to HillRunner.com in one way or another. I have to make changes before October or HillRunner.com will be tagged “unsafe” by a major industry player and you’ll be warned that HillRunner.com is unsafe every time you do almost anything interactive at HillRunner.com.

As long as I have to make these disrupting changes, I’m also going to move forward and make the coding changes I’ve been hesitating to make. Essentially, HillRunner.com is going to be rebuilt from the ground up.

As a result, HillRunner.com will be undergoing a significant transition in September. I’m going to attempt to make this as seamless as possible but to make it completely seamless is impossible, which is why I’m devoting a weekly blog post to this.

Tentatively scheduled for Thursday and Friday, September 21st and 22nd, HillRunner.com will be moving to a new server. I will attempt to have as much of the site as possible, especially relatively static pages like the Treadmill Pace Conversions and the Calculators, up and running as soon as the change has been made. However, there may be some issues that need to be worked out. Specifically, I’m concerned about training logs and blog posts.

I’m concerned about training logs because you will need to create a new account to log on to HillRunner.com. I’m working on ideas on how to relink your account to your training log data. I’ll come up with something, even if it involves a lot of work for me. I’m going to make sure nobody who has entrusted their training logs to HillRunner.com loses their history.

I’m concerned about blog posts because we’re going to be on a new blogging software. I’m working on plans to import blog posts so we don’t lose the hundreds we already have but I’m not sure how this will work or if they will be up immediately.

I know this is a concerning transition. I’ve not done this for so long because I’ve constantly been searching for better solutions or hoping one might be built. However, my hand is being forced. Something needs to be done now, I can’t wait any longer for a better solution to be made. I apologize up front for any problems this will cause. Please know I’ll be working as hard as possible to minimize the problems.

As always, I appreciate your support and understanding. We’ll get through this and have a HillRunner.com that is better than ever in the end. Hopefully, we’ll also have one that is easier for me to maintain so I can commit more time to improving the site and adding more content to help you be the best runner you can be.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

As Double recently noticed, this summer has gotten completely away from me. However, it’s not too late to build a strong Team HillRunner.com for Al’s Run

The team veterans know the details. For anyone new, here’s a quick run down. Join the team and you’ll get filled in on all the details.

Al’s Run this year is on Saturday, September 16th. The race starts at the usual location on the Marquette campus at 10:30 in the morning. Post-race, I hope most of the team can make it up to my house for a cookout and team social.

This is always a very fun event. I always feel honored that such great people would be willing to represent HillRunner.com. I hope to see both the veterans as well as some new faces there this year.

Join Team HillRunner.com!

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Another 6 months have passed and I almost forgot about this! Here’s your open invitation to ask me anything.

Within reason, nothing is off limits. Ask about training, racing, my thoughts on any news in the sport. Ask about the site, the coaching service, Club HillRunner.com or anything else that’s going on.

If you want to ask publicly, you can do so in the comments or on Facebook. If you want to ask more privately, you can use the contact form or, if you’re friends with me on Facebook or you know my email address, you can reach me through those options.

So what have you been thinking about and wanting to ask?

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Last week, I mentioned that this is the time of the year that we think about what we want to do next year.

It’s also the time of the year when we reflect on the year that has passed. I’d like to take a moment to reflect on what 2016 has held for HillRunner.com and maybe look a little forward to what 2017 may hold.

2016 was a very busy year for me personally, which means I didn’t have as much time as I’d like to work on HillRunner.com. Ok, I’ll be honest. Even in the best year, I never get as much time as I’d like to work on HillRunner.com but this year I got less time than I usually do.

That said, some things have happened at HillRunner.com, mostly visible to Club HillRunner.com members.

I haven’t gotten nearly as many videos uploaded as I wanted. That is going to be a focus for 2017.

However, club members who use the training log should have noticed more visual representations of their training through charts. Club members will now see a "My Trends" section on the homepage where they can see daily and monthly trends (weekly trends to come). They will also see charts in other parts of their logs that should help them visualize how their training has been going.

As always, I’ve also made some changes to the display of the site to modernize it and make it easier to use on both big and small screens. Most of these should not be terribly noticeable for most but I hope, if you had issues in the past, they have been resolved. If not, don’t hesitate to let me know.

On the content side, I took a look through all of this year’s blog posts and noted far too many to mention that I’m very happy to see out there. A few of the many I’m happy to have had the ability to write about over the course of 2016:

Following up on the Winter running post I originally wrote many years ago and update/resurface every year, I finally wrote a Summer running post that will probably get similar treatment.

I wrote about both not getting caught up in "magic workouts" and the importance of consistency, which are related topics in my opinion.

I started a spotlight workout series with hilly long runs. Being a series, I should probably write at least a couple more posts in 2017.

I also noticed that I repeated myself some (Consistency matters and Get off the roller coaster for example). I don’t regret this and I will continue to do so because some topics are important enough to be repeated.

On the coaching front, we’re always learning and things never go perfectly. There have been ups and downs but I’m happy to report that there were far more ups than downs, including a runner who set a PR in every race he ran this year, a runner taking her first ever overall victory, and a few Boston Qualifying marathon efforts. I haven’t been working with many runners this year but those who I have had the opportunity to work with, as usual, are hard workers who make my job a wonderful experience.

This article was originally posted by Ryan at the original HillRunner.com Blogs.

Another 6 months have passed. Here’s your open invitation to ask me anything.

Within reason, nothing is off limits. Ask about training, racing, my thoughts on any news in the sport. Ask about the site, the coaching service, Club HillRunner.com or anything else that’s going on.

If you want to ask publicly, you can do so in the comments, on Facebook or you can tweet at HillRunner.com (or tweet at my personal account). If you want to ask more privately, you can use the contact form or, if you’re friends with me on Facebook or you know my email address, you can reach me through those options.

So what have you been thinking about and wanting to ask?