Blogger Spotlight: the5krunner

Launched as an anonymous running and triathlon blog, the5krunner is authored by three ‘mysterious’ runners and triathletes. Using their expertise in multi-sports training and a deep interest in sports technology, the authors provide detailed posts with tips on the best devices, regimes and other accessories to help with speed, endurance and training fun. In this spotlight, one of the contributors from the5krunner which featured on our top ten running UK blog ranking, chats to us about what makes the blog different, how the success of the the5krunner is measured, and how they like to work with PRs.

Why should people read your blog? What makes it different? I care about what I write and I enjoy doing it. Hopefully, I can be occasionally entertaining as well as informative.

Can you share with us why and how you got into running? When I was 10 I had to go about 5k to get back home. That journey involved a secluded tow path and a cemetery. At 10 years old that was a bit scary, so I ran fast!

Where do you most love to run and why? I love to run locally in any of the parks in the London Borough of Richmond. If I’m running on my own then most other people are usually either polite enough to smile and wave or, if they are slower than me, they cannot escape me getting involved in a conversation with them.

What does running give you? A bad back and the occasional blister.

What is your favourite running memory? My favourite running memory was at the end of an international duathlon race, which ends with a run. I knew I was positioned reasonably well and very close to the finish but there were two Spanish runners ahead of me. I had to give the normally impossible 110% to beat them, which I did.

What motivates you? I’m fairly focussed on the moment so once I have a routine I can usually motivate myself at any given moment in any given run. However longterm my motivation is to win an Age Group medal of something triathlon- or duathlon-related. That’s quite hard to do so if I don’t manage it then I will just say that I am motivated by wanting to be fit and healthy when I’m much older.

How do you measure the success of your website? I vaguely hoped to make an enjoyable ‘hobby’ pay some money to at least partially recompense my time. My spreadsheets all suggested that once I got one million visitors a year then I would achieve such financial ‘success’. However having now got past the one million visitor mark I have found that my spreadsheet was decidedly wrong in its optimism.

How do you work with marketers and PRs? I’m constrained by how they want to work and it varies from company to company, usually depending on how seriously the PR or company take the role of bloggers. How I work also depends on how much they genuinely understand the end consumer and what interests the end consumer.

What can PRs do in working better with you? They could give me the same press release that they give 20 other people and hope that I add one sentence when I re-post it where my sentence might say “Hey Readers! Read this it’s not corporate waffle-speak for once”. But really if PRs want content that people actually read then they need to provide timely, newsworthy information. If everyone gets a press release it’s only newsworthy for about a day in the modern world of instant global information. IMHO a PR should select a few bloggers and work on giving them some form of unique access to the product they represent – that way genuinely unique and interesting content can be created that people will actually read.

I can tell every PR who reads this that when I just post a press release it gets somewhere near zero hits. Proper content gets way more hits. For me they need to give me a product to review before it is released and access to the team behind it because I need to ask questions that will probably not be covered in a press release.

The PR should also remember that they are getting paid for what they do. They perhaps try to ‘square the circle’ when they see the value in my readership but then want free access to it. Just a thought.

What has been your blogging highlight? There have been 2 or 3 occasions when I wrote something that elicited a long and considered response from a reader. I’m talking 100’s of words as a response. The fact that someone would take the time and thought to interact to that level was, I thought, ‘moving’.

What will be big in your blogosphere in the coming months? I’m trying to expand my content and my blog to guest authors who want to write about things that will be of interest to my readers but which I either do not have the time or knowledge to write about. That’s one thing. Another is an Ironman which I may, or may not, finish. Another is lots of exciting sports gadgets, some of them even work ;-)