The 'New' Boards

I’ll be truthfully honest, I took a break from here in June/July this year. Mainly, and not trying to sing my own praises, but I was fed up of trying to keep the place going. It’s a dying forum, newbie’s don’t care about keeping the place going and the dinosaurs only nip in update there log and get the hell out of Dodge.

What we have is the new A/R, say your bit and leave.

Not to pick on you, but you’re a prime example of what I said, an experienced poster who updates the log weekly but contributes little else to the forum.

You’re probably right and I didn’t mean anything personal towards TPP who’s a longer contributor to this forum than myself I think. But I feel the round about point I was trying to make, posters of TPP ilk don’t contribute to the forum as much as they could?

A sure sign things have gone very bad on here is I'm trying to come up with nominees for the AR awards and I'm struggling badly on a bunch of them. Post of the Year? Newbie of the Year? Thread of the year? Not a clue...

The move to the new format has been a complete disaster, was badly handled, and made boards significantly worse. The place is almost deserted these days.

As far as I can tell, I cannot "unstick" any posts - happy to be told otherwise but so far I cannot figure out how to do it. And I definitelty don't want to delete them.

I'm open to any constructive suggestions.

My comment wasn’t personally aimed at you, and I’m sorry if you think it was, as an avid reader of this forum for know the

I was having a go at my Missus for the record!!!!

Well to give context I arrived on the scene after all of that shenanigans ...looks like several really good posters left around that time...but after that, from 2017 to 2019 the forum was still pretty decent...then 2020 onwards its been much quiter.

I was talking to Sean Hehir recently and he was saying that he gets a lot of information on races, routes etc from Boards. So it is a useful, well known source.

Theres a good opportunity here if we can find a workable way of making it engaging - maybe we need more races and a huge Novice bunch.

I'm more of a training log guy and not one for the main A&R fourm - I hold my hands up there - must do better!!

I think the lack of the DCM novice thread 2 years in a row has been a big loss, it brings a lot of energy and gives the new runners a chance to bed in the place and opportunity for us to get to know them. I struggle to invest too much in newbies elsewhere because a lot of the time I find we're offering the same old advice over and over and 95% of the time it's ignored, quite often get no thanks either and then they're gone again.... With regards my own training I did log for my marathon build up but that was only 10 weeks out of 52, the rest of the time what I'm doing is very much the same week in, week out. Races have been so sparse so just not a whole lot to write about. I keep an eye on logs and love reading updates from old reliable loggers (I won't name anyone because I'll probably leave someone out then!) but most of the time I don't really feel I have enough experience (or am fast enough) to offer much in the way of constructive feedback. I do like the shoe thread 😉

The race calendar has no momentum yet but if the outlook remains positive towards outdoor events it should be recovered by mid spring.

You need a long schedule of events be it a race series or spring marathons to get people on the same page in terms of training and racing cycles.

I always found the DCM series as a pivotal section of the year which carries you from spring short distance into late summer lsr.

For the last 20 months it has been a personal slog for people with no running community in a real sense.

My opinion for what it's worth would be on the same wave lengths as @OOnegative & @Murph_D really. The more people that are logging the more interest there is around the place but it also comes down to interacting with each other. We all don't have the same style running or follow the same plans but sometimes as D said it's just about congratulating or commiserating with someone or even just acknowledging something in their training that resonates with you. Sometimes people write their logs & they are not even sure if they are of any interest at all to others (but most people do write to keep track of their training). I can only speak personally but I enjoy the bit of banter, the encouragement, the jaysus what were you thinking doing that in training!! The DCM novice thread is a huge loss that's obvious but how about giving a bit of life back to the loggers that do take the time to post stuff regularly? I think we can go around in circles blaming the new layout etc but it's not going back to the old way so we need to just accept it & try use it as best we can. As for what defines a real runner, who gets to decide that? I feel I am a real runner based on my love & consistency of my running, not based on my times at all, but really we are all doing this as a hobby as part of very busy family & work lives. I am not very knowledgeable at all when it comes to running or offering advice about it but when I do see something positive or maybe someone having a bit of a hard time I just naturally feel I should write on their log. The only people that can make this forum a bit more alive are the people that are part of it. I'll stop waffling now!

Yet.............

That’s a lie, you’re from Offaly!!!!!

And there are bonus points if you have (or had in the past, or will have in the future) a mismatched number of toes and toenails.

But apart from that, a real runner is someone who runs. The End.

Having been lurking in the logs and around the site for quite while I think the issue is probably more the running activity that the site itself. the site hasn't helped and is painful but the lack of focus without racing has meant that probably the site is a mirror of real life where people have been relatively aimless without the races and it's showing with the overall engagement.

I don't want to be offering out much advice to anyone as I don't have a huge amount of experience, so at the moment I'm just trying to learn from the logs and work on consistency and they are a great inspiration in that respect. I suspect though that anyone brand new to the A&R site might find them a little intimidating and think that only the really serious and great runners would log and that it might not be the place for them to go.

For the new year I'll try get a bit more involved in the discussion, if a few of the less frequent posters like me all chipped in just a little bit then it would all add up to a bit more life about the place.

Ill call it out now, the DCM novice thread wont really happen next year either. As it is already sold out and mainly to people who ran in 2019. What do we reckon, about 5k are entrants who have never ran one before. Then what % of them will come here and participate. Id be going with the mentality that it will be a non runner next year also

Some of the points raised about the logs are interesting. Years ago, I only really checked in on logs of runners I’d met at various races, or people that were planning on the same marathon as me with similar time goals. Those sorts of interactions were very enjoyable. In recent years, obviously especially this last two, I’ve been a bit of a loner of a runner, in the real and online world, so not engaging as much with other people’s logs either.

I’d be happy to welcome any comments from anyone on my log, boring thread as it is. Often, outside voices questioning or challenging what we’re doing from a training perspective is fresh and very helpful.

Looking back on the history of the board I think in the earlier stages it was a very community based network before Social Media blew up. The likes of Woddle and robinph really drove a community setting (to the point where boards was actually a registered AC) a lot of challenges and engagements as many were relatively new to the sport and figuring it out as they went along.

This engagement with regular posters became replaced with a cycle of new DCM posters on a yearly basis which helped keep things cycling as regular posters stopped engaging as much but the past two years have definitely curtailed that. Information sources have definitely diversified as coaches, elite athletes etc have divulged more and more with social media they are a lot more engaged as such peoples approaches have become more specialized resulting in less training discussion amongst those who have been around a while and the same questions being asked with new to the sport runners (gone are the P and D/ Daniels/ Greg McMillan Training threads where +5 people are doing the same sessions each week giving there experience and the culminating race reports (and often meet ups as options for races weren't as abundant)

The lack of races definitely have thrown a spanner in the works the last 2 years but ultimately engagement shouldn't rely solely on that especially in absence of IRL meet ups it should bring a virtual community more to the fore.

I come from a long line of bacteria, always told me I should go back to my roots and never forget where I came from ;)