In May 2011, I found myself just having
amazingly enough qualified for a 24 hour Obstacle Course Race, World’s Toughest
Mudder. It had been years since I was in training and the 10-mile Tough Mudder
was the longest race I had ever run. I was a 27 year-old ski coach, dorm parent
and recruiter for a ski academy in Vermont and hadn’t trained seriously since
college. Knowing you can fake a lot of things in athletics, I knew you couldn’t
fake a 24-hour race. I needed something to hold me accountable to the training
needed for this event. That’s when I came up with an idea, a blog.
Dirt in Your Skirt
(www.dirtinyourskirt.com) was created initially as an online training journal,
each morning I would post on the website’s Facebook page my workout for the day
(WOD) then do the workout and write about it before I went to bed each night.
Out of this simple idea a movement was born. I did not go to school to write,
in fact my business degree and decade of coaching did not lend to literary
prowess. As I began to get deeper and deeper into my training the blogs started
to become more descriptive and entertaining. Stories started to emerge of run
ins with animals while running, musings on life, and training tips.
As I wrote more my writing started to
improve and people started to read my daily blogs. Some were funny, some were
sad, all still are brutally honest. Each post is a little part of me. I found
the more I wrote the more I was able to write. My blog was born just as
Obstacle Course Racing was starting to gain momentum and as the sport began to
grow so did my blog and followers. In many ways I grew as a racer and a writer
at the same time. Writing blogs for me seemed and still seems the best way to
close out a race or major life adventure is to write about it.
In February 2012, Dirt in Your Skirt became
the recipient of the 2012 International Weblog Awards – Best Sports Weblog.
More and more people began to be engaged in the story of one woman’s journey
into an extreme fitness world. The simple blog about daily workouts has grown
into a full website offering blogs on training, racing, gear reviews and life
experiences as well as online coaching, an online shop, and the first public
forum dedicated to Obstacle Course Racing and endurance sports.
I recently quit my day job in education and
decided to make racing and writing my full-time vocation. With help from
athletic sponsors Gaspari Nutrition, CW-X Conditioning Wear, Mocean Mate,
Garuka Bars and training partner UTE CrossFit I have been able to transition
into this new life. With the help from these sponsors I have been able to rise
up to the #1 ranked woman in the Spartan Race World Points Rankings and have
several ultra marathons in my 2013 season. It is amazing how a good run,
workout or race can teach you impactful life lessons. I am just lucky to be
able to share these experiences with an audience and I thank blogging each day
for that opportunity.
People often ask me how you become a good writer;
I truly think writing is the same thing as athletics, if you want to be good
you must practice. I practice my writing just as I practice pull-ups, push-ups,
or runs; I just do it, over and over again. The more I write, the better I
become and more I find my own voice. This is the greatest gift blogging gives
you, your voice, unfiltered and free.
Margaret is the author of Dirt in Your Skirt... For her full bio, click here.
No comments:
Post a Comment