Learning about blogging on my bike
I have been participating in the 31 days to a better blog challenge for 28 days, and I must say I will be sad when it ends. Not because I don’t have enough things to do to finish said challenge, as a matter of fact, it will probably take me more than another 31 days to do it. No, it’s the community of people who have formed around it. All slogging through a similar experience in very different ways. It’s been great journeying with you, and I hope it goes forward in some new form.
It’s hard to even isolate the daily tasks anymore, so I’m taking a new tack, and bringing forward a new type of reflection. At the beginning of the summer, I attended a workshop with Rita Bailey, during which we came up with an example to apply the learning. The result of which was me getting a new bike. This is the bike I rode in the Providence Bridge Pedal where I learned about Spontaneous Stereotyping and Storytelling. So I’ve been off riding again, this time on a 21 mile trail created on an old railroad bed. I learned a bit about training, and a realized a few things about blogging too.
This bike ride was very much like the 31 day blogging challenge, in that it looked pretty easy at first. It was a gentle uphill grade, but it went on for miles. Sort of like the daily challenges, each one is simple enough, but adding a new one day after day, it accumulates. Just like my thighs on that long hill, I started to feel the burn. Because really to improve your blog, you have to take each challenge and incorporate it into a new way of doing things as you move forward. After two weeks, you are adding 14 new things to an already busy schedule of work and family.
In the center of this 21 mile path, you hit gravel, then mud, then a steep downhill and uphill with loose big gravel. Suddenly, the ride gets a lot harder. There have been some challenge days that felt like that. Great idea, but do I really want to take the time to figure out how to do it? On the ride, I didn’t want to disappoint my husband who was riding with me, and on the challenge, I didn’t want to disappoint the rest of the challenge participants. I had to find a way to keep going.
After a bit more gravel we hit a gentle downhill that was a great relief, and reminded me of the days the challenge tasks were to do something around advertising or monetizing a blog. Yes, I get to rest a bit. But guess what, after getting to the end, we had to turn around and come back up that gentle downhill. More tasks.
Then back through the gravel, the mud, the steep hills with rocks. This time though, it was easier. We knew what was coming, we could pace ourselves. Like the tasks from the earlier days of the challenge are getting easier to incorporate into the blogs.
Eventually we got to the top of what had been the long slow climb uphill. Only this time, it was a glorious several mile downhill coast with the sun streaming through the trees. I hope in a few months the tasks from the challenge will be incorporated into how I do things, and it will feel like a glorious downhill ride. I’m looking forward to it. 
So, instead of going shopping to learn about blogging as per the day 25 task, I went on a bike ride. And I realized I have to ride at my own pace and enjoy the process. Tasks completed, at least they will be in their own time.
17 Responses to “Learning about blogging on my bike”
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hey.. have been browsin through a lot of bloggers who are active in darren’s 31 day challenge though i myself am not part of it, and am glad to have found you guys.. it’s an interesting niche and am sure it ll help u a lot in bossting visual based training..
wud be coming back often.. and maybe after some while also subscribe
Christine, this is just a fabulous, beautifully-written post. Thank you for sharing the ride with all of us. I just wish that the 31 Day challenge had been good for my thighs. . . .
Maneesh,
I’d encourage you to try the 31 day challenge tasks as your blog gets going. I certainly have benefited from it. I hope you find something of value here and keep coming back.
Michele,
Thanks for the affirmation. I wondered if it would just be too far from the task, check, task, check format to have any value for others. I really have been finding myself being driven deeper into reflection as the days went by. I don’t think I will truly see the full benefit from participation for several months—which is good. Great learning sticks.
What a wonderful analogy of biking to training. It makes me think that training is to regular experience as biking is to walking: you move ahead much more quickly, sometimes easily and sometimes not, while covering the same ground. And like training, once you cover the same ground again at a more natural pace, everything sinks in better. Thanks for the enjoyable prose.
Thanks Dion,
I’m so grateful it gets easier, and I think your insight of it being a natural to your pace is key.
Christine…This was just lovely. I love the metaphor. I personally feel like I’ve hit heartbreak hill in the Boston Marathon and am just not sure I’ll have the strength to go on. You inspire me to do it in my own time and not feel bad about it…:)
Cammy,
We can crawl up that hill together.
Any other metaphors? Perhaps,blog challenge is like being a squirrel with a mouth over-full of nuts?
Christine
I read this post when you first wrote it but was so tired from my busy week that I did not get a chance to tell you how much I loved your comparison of this blogging challenge to bike riding. Will I look forward to the end tomorrow in some ways – I don’t because it has been a fantastic learning experience and I have enjoyed networking with everyone.
Lets hope some how we can work out how to keep the community going even if it is a case of setting weekly task
,
Sue
Sue,
Great idea to have a weekly task. That feels so much more do-able and sustainable over the long haul.
@ christine..
the 31 day challenge is not my style.. hehe :p
i have deep respect for darren and his achievements.. but i like figurin things out on my own.. and form what i see mine andhis views are not very different on matters regardin blogs… ok now that’s a stmt
keep up the good work.. am definitely learnin stuff frm u..
Thanks maneesh,
but the pain of the challenge is so worth it….. glad you are learning also.
What a great post mate
loved it – fantastic analogies.
I have SOOOOOOOOOO far to go yet with my challenge lol – but will get there. Decided I needed to populate my blog with more posts than just the challenge to make the tasks more meaningful, hence the minor hiatus!
Cheers EvilSue
Give me an old cool bicycle, and I’ll ride around the city for days.