I am no stranger to loving social media and using it openly to share my running journey.  Between my Facebook blog, webpage and Instagram I have made a lot of new friends and been graced with thousands of followers who share my health, wellness and fitness journey with me.  Though I mostly use my social media to share pictures of cows I see on the run or the hundreds of selfies I manage to snag, I have also learned the importance of using social media as a tool to enhance my training.

I have an awesome running coach, Coach Patrick who has helped me progress very far in my mental journey as a runner, as well as physically through his challenging training plans.  Working with a Coach provides a huge sense of accountability, and to enhance that, sharing my training journey on social media and using it as a tool has provided me an even bigger sense of accountability and even furthered my running journey.

When I am able to write about my training on my blog or give a quick caption on Instagram, it offers me the opportunity to reflect on my run that day or where I am at with my training.  It is important for me to celebrate the good runs with a huge smile and a WOOHOO! just for me, but even more important is for me to be able to identify a challenging or bad run and be able to put it into words.  It is very valuable to be able to look back on my last few runs and see where I am at mentally and physically to ensure I am not so focused on the micro that I forget to look at the macro.

Additionally, using social media as a tool to enhance my running journey has benefit me greatly because I have found many online running groups and made friends through social media to help support my running journey to. It is valuable for me, as someone who mostly runs alone, to know I have a community I can share my highs and lows with. I am so very fortunate to have met some awesome people through social media who have become my best running friends, and will rock out some long runs or races with me on occasion when I need a friend or five to run with!

Right now I’m in the throes of training for the Eugene Marathon, half marathon. It’s my goal for 2019 to PR my half time and I’m starting my 2019 journey by using Eugene to see where I’m at. I have been able to use social media to openly express how my training is going, the good, bad and the ugly, and to find and feel support from a wide community of runners and non runners who are rooting for my success. The value of this is so beneficial, especially on the days where my runs are challenging and my frustrations are high.

I’m looking forward to continuing my training for the race and feeling the support and accountability from everyone I am friends with and followers on social media. I can’t wait to see how I do on April 28th! (If you’d like to join the fun, use VANESSAEM19 for a discount on the half or marathon!)

Cheers runners!

Vanessa