Welcome Back!

Ready to get started with running again?

© Jeff Ferguson | Dreamstime

I’ve always loved the starting line at races. There’s an air of anticipation, an extra little bit of excitement, a feeling of are-we-really-ready-to-do-this, wouldn’t-it-be-nice-to-go-back-to-bed, oh-well-what-the-hell-let’s-go-run-ten-miles (or 13.1, or 26.2, or… you get the picture 😉)

Especially if you haven’t run one in a while, you’re always a little nervous before you start. Because the run ahead of you is an entirely blank canvas, waiting to be painted, and it’s still all perfect.

That’s the way I feel right now as I write this to you, because it’s been a while since we’ve had the chance to get together — I’ve taken almost a month off from the newsletter, by far my longest break so far. And I’ve missed you all, big time! I’ve missed hearing from you in the comments, in our Friday live chats, and in the days between.

My summer has been an active one as far as life goes — we took a trip to the beach with our kids, and have been trying to keep them busy with camps in the weeks since school ended while also (somehow!) doing our jobs — but not so much with running.

You may remember I experienced a running injury back in the spring, which kept me sidelined for weeks. I’ve come back to running since then, but not quite at the pace or schedule I was running before. Needless to say, I feel like I’m starting over from scratch. So if you haven’t run in a while, I feel your pain.

That said, I’m excited to get back to it — to tacking on more miles to the ones I’ve been running lately, to feel invigorated (and exhausted!) again, and to find new places to venture out for runs. There’s something about stepping away from something you love, missing it when it’s gone, and coming back that makes it a little bit sweeter.

There’s also one bit of news I need to update you on: I sold HalfMarathons.net.

If you’ve been a reader here for a while, there’s a good chance you discovered this newsletter via that website. For years, whenever someone visited it for the first time, a pop-up window would appear with a link to enter your email address — and then you’d start receiving The Half Marathoner.

As of the beginning of August, I no longer own the site. I sold it to a young entrepreneur who has a big passion for running and a lot of experience in starting and managing digital businesses, and I know he’ll be able to make it much bigger and better than I ever could.

The reason I share that with you isn’t to bore you with my own personal business, I promise! Rather, it’s to explain that I’ve been managing this newsletter and that website simultaneously all these years, splitting my time between the two — and now I’ll be able to focus 100% on this, which I’m really excited about.

And as we gear up for running this fall, I’ll be leaning away from lists of races and more into the types of posts I wrote this past spring, like the ones on Louie Zamperini, Teddy Roosevelt, Kara Goucher, Raymond Carver’s “A Small Good Thing” and the Blue Zones.

I know, too, that many of us will train for many different distances — not everyone will run just a half marathon this fall. You might run a marathon, you might run a 10-miler, you might run an ultra. There are a lot of us here — more than 50,000 people subscribe, in fact — so I’m still thinking about the right way to help as many of you train as possible, even as we run different distances.

In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you. How’s your summer been? Have you kept up with your running? Have you achieved a goal you’ve been aiming for, or run a race you’d love to tell us about? What do you have planned for the fall?

I want to hear it all 🙌 Let me know in the comments, or in a reply back.

Your friend,

— Terrell

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