HillRunner.com Admin

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

I did this about a year ago and about 6 months ago. Let’s make it a tradition to do this twice a year. Here’s your open invitation to ask me anything.

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.

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, the new Club HillRunner.com or anything else that’s going on.

So, please let me know, what have you been thinking about and wanting to ask?

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

Have you been looking for more at HillRunner.com? Have you been looking for a way to support HillRunner.com without signing up for coaching?

I’ve been hearing just these things from some of you. You’d like to see videos, you’d like more tips, you’d like a closer, more tightly knit community. Some of you have even been generous enough to say you’d like to support HillRunner.com financially but you don’t feel the need to sign up for coaching. That’s why I’m starting Club HillRunner.com. To meet all of those requests.

So what is Club HillRunner.com? To be honest, I picture the club as the community of runners who sign up. However, let’s talk about what this community can expect to see.

What can Club HillRunner.com members expect to get?

To start out, there will be three primary benefits of joining Club HillRunner.com:

1) Membership in a private Facebook group: This is a group where I will share weekly tips that I don’t share publicly elsewhere. I also share links to interesting articles when I have too many to blog about and I hope to see it grow into a community where we can share in our experiences, support each other and ask and answer questions in a more private setting than we can elsewhere.

Every week, you will find a tip that is posted just to the group. From training tips…

…to advice on form and everything in between.

2) Exclusive access to a library of training videos: The library isn’t yet set up but will be before Club HillRunner.com officially launches on July 1st. This will be a place to find short instructional videos on a variety of things, from strength training exercises to form drills, stretches and tips on running form. I’m sure it will also include a few other things of interest as the library grows.

3) The HillRunner.com SuperCalc: Have you ever used the HillRunner.com calculators and found yourself wishing the functions of two or more could be combined into one? I know I have so I did something about it. I created the SuperCalc, which does just that. Simply enter a recent race result and you can get information on equivalent race performances, suggested training paces and more all in one place. Even some things that aren’t available in the currently available calculators.

The SuperCalc combines the best of the HillRunner.com Calculators into one easy to use tool. It can predict your performance at any distance you would like, given a result at another distance.

At the same time, it will give you equivalent performances at some commonly run distances.

It will even help you find recommended training paces in the same place.

Keep in mind that more benefits will be coming in the future. For instance, I have some ideas to improve the training log that will be made available first to Club HillRunner.com members before they are made available publicly.

Finally, you’ll be supporting HillRunner.com financially. Some of you have asked about donating to the site. I appreciate the offers but I’ve never felt right accepting donations without offering something in return. So this is what I can offer. If you want to support HillRunner.com, this is how you can do so and get something in return.

Signing up is easy and inexpensive, especially if you do so soon! Right now if you sign up, you can get membership good through the end of June 2016 for just $10. Just follow this link to find sign up information.

Note: If you are receiving coaching from me, you are already a Club HillRunner.com member. No need to sign up!

If you have any questions about this new offering, please don’t hesitate to ask.

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

First, I want to thank those of you who took the time to fill out the survey. I’m going to leave it open through the end of February if anyone else wants to take it yet and I will check in again once I close it to see if new responses have arrived. However, once I took the link off the site, responses have pretty quickly diminished so I’m ready to review the initial results and report what I see and what I’m going to do about it.

First, it’s not a big surprise to me that the blogs, calculators and treadmill pace chart were the most used parts of the site. I was a little surprised to see the calculators leading the way but I think that’s a good thing. I think the calculators are useful tools and I’m glad to see they are valued by you.

As for what you’d like to see improved, I expected the blogs to lead the way and they did. I’m hard at work improving them and I did make a couple additions even while the survey was running. More is on the way.

A little surprise came up with the second most popular choice for improvement, the calculators. I figured it would be the training log. This is good to know and some ideas were given, some which would be more difficult than others, but all of which will be reviewed and considered.

The training log did show up as the third most popular choice for improvement and I will definitely keep that in mind. I also have some ideas for what could be beneficial there and will devote some time to those ideas.

I also slipped in a final question about a project I’ve been working on and planning to release later this year. I realize it’s not for everyone, nothing really is, but there was enough interest in this project that I do intend to continue.

Again, I appreciate all the feedback. Every response will be considered and is deeply valued. I hope this will help me build a better and more useful HillRunner.com in 2015.

I also intend to keep doing a survey annually, probably in January. I feel this will help me focus my efforts on what is most needed or desired.

If you have any comments on the survey or the results, please don’t hesitate to share, either through the comments here or via the contact form.

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

I just wanted to point out a couple new additions I made this weekend to the blogs.

The most significant is the new addition of Categories. You’ll see available categories listed near the top of the right sidebar, as well as under the "Blogs" section of the navigation menu at the top of every page on HillRunner.com. I categorized some recent posts and will continue going back through history to get posts into their proper categories.

Parallel to this change, I also updated what you will see in the preview screen when you’re writing a new post (remember, I’m not the only one who can start new blog posts – anyone who is registered is welcome to post). As you’re making your post, you can schedule your post to appear "Now" (as soon as you click the "Publish Post" button) or "Later" (at a date and time of your choosing). Also, you can select one or more categories for your post to appear under.

I hope you will agree with me that these are two great new additions to the HillRunner.com Blogs. The best part: more is on the way.

If you have any suggestions for other ways to make the Blogs even better, please don’t hesitate to share with me. You can comment here or use the contact form to let me know more privately.

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

As I’m sure the regulars have figured out, I’m mostly interested in building a site that will be useful to you. I want to build what you want and need to make the most of your running, whatever your goals.

In the past, I’ve always done that by asking what tools would help me make the most of my running. Some generous people have helped me along the way with requests or suggestions but it’s been largely myself just deciding what would be helpful.

I want to change that. I realize that I don’t always know what other runners want and I don’t want to guess anymore. So I created a simple survey to get some input on what you think of the site. The questions are basic right now but they will give me a feel for what you use, what you would like to see improved and what ideas I may have not thought of for what to add to HillRunner.com.

You will also notice a couple of questions pertaining to a new addition to HillRunner.com that I plan to make available in the first half of this year. Some of you have asked for more involved offerings, some of you have asked if there is a way to financially support HillRunner.com without signing up for coaching. I believe this new offering, Club HillRunner.com, will accomplish both. Because it takes time and money to produce the more involved offerings, it will be a paid offering but I believe the price will be very reasonable for what you will receive. If you do want to help the site financially, this will be your way to do so and get something for your investment.

The survey take less than 5 minutes and results are completely anonymous. I will take your responses very seriously and prioritize my work according to the results. I will also keep your responses at the forefront of my mind as I work on the new Club HillRunner.com.

One more time, here is the link to the survey. I hope you can take it and help me help you by building the best HillRunner.com possible.