Reader Appreciation & Thanks

Readers, I want you to know just how much I appreciate all of you!

I want to thank all of you reading this blog for your readership, support, and enthusiasm for the topics I post here. Blogging is a labor of love, for me. It's not the way I earn a living, and certainly doesn't pay dividends in the economic sense. But the things I've learned from readers who comment and write me off-blog, the friends I've made through blogging, and just knowing that readers and followers are out there visiting and returning to Journey to Badwater, as evidenced by the reader statistics that I see, are priceless!

This week I just hit the 300 mark for the first time on blog followers, and hit 3000 page views on my So Ya Think Ya Want To Run Badwater post, and I know that numbers fluctuate up and down from time to time, and dipping below 300 could happen again at any time, but I am so thankful for every single one of you who visit ths blog and read my posts. And I love comments!

It's not about the statistics. The fact that you all are out there and reading this for a reason tells me that I have been able to reach everyone here in some way because of a common interest, whether ultrarunning, Badwater, cancer, thyroid disease, nursing, art, politics, or any of the topics I've touched on over the past four years that this blog has been in existence.

This week has been an amazing week for me, not just on the blog but professionally and personally, too. I'm going to say more about it when I blog about my Walmart adventure this weekend, which, by the way, has a weather forecast of clear, sunny skies and 60 degree temperatures- perfect running conditions!

I love blogging. I love to write, and blogging gives me an opportunity to write on so many different topics and reach out to those with different interests. I blog about several different topics besides running, I blog on a weekly basis for Oncology Nursing Society, I have my Ultrahypo blog about thyroid disease, I've kept a private blog in the past about the trials and tribulations of nursing school and being a new nurse, and I have an art blog and food blog where I occasionally post for fun. But Journey to Badwater is my main blog and about my true passion, and I've integrated the topics that are most important to me into my posts about running.

Reading other people's blogs has been enlightening and enjoyable for me, and I'm trying to put a certain amount of time into that on a regular basis, and commenting more. I like a variety of running blogs, it's fun to read different runners' perspectives, whether they are new to running, do short distances, are highly competitive, or have creative and even odd themes on their blogs. I also read several non-running blogs. The ones I visit most frequently are here in the right hand column, but there are many others I enjoy.

While blogging I've learned that bloggers are the media, we're a source, we are perceived that way by many people, and that gives bloggers an odd sort of power, which bloggers may or may not realize to any degree, but I think it gives us a concomitant responsibility to our readers. I can only speak for myself, but that's how I see it.

Last night I came home from work and found a birthday card with a thoughtful, meaningful, and fun gift from one of my readers, and a pair of sunglasses I won in a giveaway on another blog I read. I have corresponded with many of you, some I've known for years, I've managed to meet a few of you in person at races, and I am looking forward to meeting more of you in the coming year. Blogging is an evolving medium and it has the potential to lead to so many important connections between people.

Thank you. Thank you for coming here, thank you for reading, thank you for coming back, thank you for being out there living each day and seeking adventure in your lives.