I shared last week on my Facebook and Instagram accounts an old blog post that was published on Women’s Running online.
Well, it’s actually a funny story how that all happened.
Last month, I went to my coach’s holiday party. I was super apprehensive about going because I don’t know many of her athletes and had only been running under her guidance for a few months. But, I wanted to show my appreciation for her by attending so I mustered up the courage to go….alone.
Sure enough, I found myself standing all by myself, just kinda hanging around waiting for at least one of two people I knew would be there to arrive.
A girl who I had met briefly on a run remembered me and seeing that I was alone, walked my way and made conversation. She introduced me to a few of her friends, others who have trained under Susan, my coach.
One of them asked me what I did for a living to which I replied, “Well, nothing.” Talk about awkward! LOL!
I mentioned that I used to teach English, and now get my writing/reading fix through blogging and then turned the conversation to her and asked what she did. She said she worked for Competitor Group. I knew the company once owned the Rock and Roll race series because I’m an ambassador so I asked her if the sale to Ironman affected her at all. She said that she worked for the Women’s Magazine division so not so much RnR.
Then she said, “You should send me some of your blog posts and I can submit them to our web editor.”
Say what?!?
I immediately became self-conscious and said that my writing wasn’t any good and probably not what they were looking for. She was so sweet though and told me to think about it. We exchanged contact information and that was that.
A couple of days later she contacted me and told me to just give it a shot. I decided, why not? So I sent her a few posts…I didn’t tell anyone about it, and didn’t tell anyone when the web editor approved them, and didn’t tell anyone when she told me the first one would be published late January.
But when I got the e-mail that it went live, I still couldn’t believe it. There was my blog post for all the world to see.
Not gonna lie, I was super nervous. I’ve been very comfortable in my own private, small corner of the internet blogging world. I’m not a “big” blogger nor did I start blogging to “get big.” I know that the more exposure my blog gets, the more criticism and not-so-nice opinions come with it.
Sure enough, the first comment on the Facebook page was:
And that’s okay. I know that it’s tough to “get me” or understand the context of the article without having been a reader of my blog for a while. I know, or hope, you guys know, that I’m very grateful to be able to stay home with my kids while at the same time, struggling to let go of a career I studied for and worked at for a long time. And I’m choosing to use this time to put my energy into training and making things work for where my life is currently.
I picked that particular post as the first one to share with Women’s Magazine because it was a vulnerable one. I remember when I first wrote it, being worried then of how it would be received by you guys. It was me being honest. And that’s the Helly I wanted to introduce the rest of the world to. ❤