Guess who’s 1?

Today is a special day. Today ironmountainmovement.com is 1 year old!

I have never considered myself very techie, so when the wonderful people at SmarttNet handed my website over to me I felt a little like a new parent…mmmmk, so what do I do now? Fortunately for me, my website did come with a hands on tutorial, a reference guide and plenty of techie advice when I needed it, but the thought of linking pages, inserting images, Google Analytics frightened me to death.

And then there was the blog. Really, what did I have to say (apparently a lot) and would anyone read it (there is evidence that a few of you do). I found out quickly that the only way that my blog would work for me was if I quit worrying about what I thought everyone wanted to hear and was just myself. So what started out as my official running diary (I hated the word blog back then) still does document my running and races, it also is a place where I can write about health, fitness and wellness and even rant a little as well.

As Conny and I discussed last night on our way home from spin class at the Sheep, life is about living and learning from our mistakes, not regretting but instead handling the situation differently if it happened again, and that is what I have done with my blog. Being new to social media (and I was a total rookie), I have had to learn where to set my boundaries, because when you write something, it is pretty much forever (and really, you don’t need to know and nor should you care that I had a handful of chocolate chips after eating a lunch that was completely null and void of any nutritional value).

I have also opened the door to other forms of social media such as Facebook and Twitter. For me this was a pretty big deal because until very recently I was quite a vocal anti-Facebooker, I have eaten a lot of crow on this one, which has only re-affirmed “never say never” people. It also re-affirms boundary setting. I am still surprised at some of the things that people post and also at the horrific spelling errors (I don’t understand why Facebook does not have spell check on status updates but it does when you comment on some else’s update) on Facebook.

One of the things that I enjoy most about my website is the comments that I receive not only from my clients but from people outside of the lower mainland, please keep them coming. It’s always interesting to see how people found the website (I now love Google Analytics), the most unusual one to date came last week when someone searched “Ted Bundy Summit Park” (I had mentioned this in my Sprint to the Summit post)…yikes!

The past year has required patience, nurturing and a whole lotta courage. What seemed to be such a scary thing a year ago is now a part of my day which I look forward to. I would like to send out a HUGE shout-out to my Mum (my editor) and her 17th century English, one day this will be a paying gig you know.

Happy birthday ironmountainmovement.com, lemon drops for everyone!