This week I’ll try and post a couple of things as I lead in to one of the biggest days of my life on Sunday. There are a large number of people blogging about their marathon this year (estimates put the figure at 20% of this year’s entrants) but these two stood out: Gemma Bardsley’s Beats Per Mile is a well-engineered assimilation of running data from RunKeeper, the music she will listen to and photos from points around the course taken at the time she may be passing. It’s no surprise the Gemma and her developers (Marc & Howard) are in the industry , the design is simple and sophisticated and bang on-trend with a single scroll approach. A great showcase for all concerned.
Secondly, I’m a fan of Foot4ward simply because it’s content-rich. Plenty of regular posts, diverse content (data, stories, cartography) and some charming photos. So many event-motivated bloggers set up a page and post infrequent, repetitive and impersonal material. Once you’ve read one mid-pack runners miserable grumbles about training you’ve read a lot so I’m always looking for something a little richer. Foot4ward is just about the only non elite runner’s blog I’ve added to my Google Reader this year.
There’s a good reason I didn’t do a new blog, I simply couldn’t design/code stuff like this, as much as I might sketch it out. I will, however, be revealing my progress live on Runkeeper during the race. More on that later.
John Gibbard 