Joining Runner's World

For my investigation into the world of digital citizenship in forums, I chose one of my healthier hobbies: running. Two of my favorite forms of exercise are running and yoga, and while I considered joining a yoga forum, I doubted that there could ever be anything less than zen-like attitudes on the forum. However, runners tend to develop strong opinions about their strategies, eating habits, schedules, you name it. For this reason, I thought that a runner's forum may have some interesting moments of digital citizenship to observe. As the runners share their opinions and personal experiences, it will be interesting to see if interactions remain civil. 

Another reason I felt a running forum would be a great place to join for this occasion is purely selfish: I hope it inspires me to run even more often, and more successfully. While in high school I played softball and I absolutely hated running any further than around the softball diamond. Once in college in beautiful San Diego, I came around and began to love running. One of my best friends and I frequently enter races, ranging from 5ks-10ks (and sometimes involving mud and obstacles). My goal is to run a half marathon in the near future ( who knows what the definition of "near" will be). However, even in my initial viewing of the forum, I am beginning to feel the motivation. 

In my everyday life at school, with family and with friends, the topic of running does not come up often. Even with my running buddy, our conversations about running generally consist of complaining we are too busy to run as much as we should. While I admit at first I did not see the value of an online forum, I already am enjoying receiving free advice from avid runners who have a level of passion for this activity that I hope to develop. The Runner's World forum (found at: http://community.runnersworld.com) has communities specific to beginners, women, masters, and those interested in team-running. It also is divided by topic into sections like "5K to Half Marathon". "Marathon", "Triathlon", "Trail Running" , "Barefoot Running", "Nutrition and Weight Loss", "Health and Injury", and several others. The forum seems to have very active participation, with some community members posting every day to various threads. 

So far I have browsed several threads, but I spent quite a bit of time reading a thread focused on achieving a 10K time under 45min, a far off but possible goal of my own. I observed quite a bit of positive rapport between the community members on this thread. People were very encouraging of others, mildly suggesting ways to improve times. The only comment that may have lacked positivity was a question of whether or not some of those suggesting longer workouts ever sleep, to which another member replied "Sleep is for the weak". However, this minor teasing seemed to be in good fun, and was followed with further encouragement. I was also impressed by a trend among community members: They post their personal records, "PRs", in their signature of each comment. I suppose this serves as an indicator of where each member is in their running ability or commitment. I will admit that I am already truly enjoying reading more about running strategies and workouts and feel I have quite a few new ideas to go try out.