What a wild ride! Strength Running is nearly two years old and has grown to a community of 2,300+ kick-ass runners.
Remember the old site?
I bought the domain “strengthrunning.com” in 2007 but had no idea what I was going to do with it. I just thought it was a cool name. After years of being lost in the tubes of the internet, I launched Strength Running as you see it now in April of 2010.
And I’m really proud of what it’s become:
More than 200 articles on injury prevention, performance, motivation, and tactics to help you run easier, faster, and healthier. You won’t find short topical posts that don’t cover specifics and lack actionable advice. The average article on Strength Running is well over 1,000 words and has one goal: to help you run better.
Almost 3,000 (!) comments from a community of runners who want to achieve their best.
And thousands of new runners visit this website every single day.
Where do they begin? How do they know what to read first? Of course there’s the How to Start Running page for beginners, but today I want to give you a behind the scenes look at why I started Strength Running and where it’s headed.
The Strength Running Mission
I started Strength Running because I wanted to help other runners avoid the mistakes that I used to make with my training. My training used to be more two-dimensional: I never did flexibility work, my core exercises were sporadic, and my workouts were too frequent and too intense.
I made many of the mistakes that most runners make with their training. After I ran my first marathon in 2008, I couldn’t run for six months because of ITBS. The process of getting healthy made me realize that there’s a better way to train. Injuries shouldn’t be so common. A marathon shouldn’t cripple someone.
Since then, I haven’t had a single major injury. That’s three years of healthy running! In that time I’ve read more running books, articles, studies, and blog posts than is reasonable or sane. I improved my marathon best by over 5 minutes to 2:39:32. Runners of all shapes and sizes have used my coaching to run a lot of personal bests. And Strength Running has been visited almost half a million times.
These accomplishments make me proud – I’m so glad I’ve been able to help so many. Everything that SR has been able to do is influenced by its mission, which is:
Strength Running helps distance runners run faster, prevent injuries, and enjoy their running with more holistic training and a focus on being a well-rounded athlete.
It’s pretty simple: I don’t think you can be a good runner if you’re not consistent, strong, healthy, and athletic. Everything here is designed to help you get in better shape according to these principles.
If you’re new here, check out these hand-picked articles that I think demonstrate the training philosophy of a Strength Runner:
- 7 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Running
- Small Wins = Huge Improvements: How to Run Faster Over the Long-Term
- Developing Running Coordination and Athleticism (Or, Preventing One-Dimensional Fitness)
- Running Gear You Need – And Gear That You Don’t
- The Principle of Progression: How to Consistently Get Faster
My Promise
I’m only going to write about topics that will help you become a better runner and live a healthy lifestyle. Posts on SR will motivate you to get out of your routine and run a new race in another country, start a new strength program, upgrade your diet to lose weight and feel better, or connect with other runners who share similar goals.
You’ll never see ugly banner ads on Strength Running promoting P90X or other fitness fads. While SR is a business, it makes money primarily through coaching. This means that my runners need to see results!
I only recommend a few products (and there are thousands) and I either use them myself or trust them 100%. My goal is to give you the best information on the entire internet (I know, I’m ambitious) to make you a better runner.
How Strength Running Can Help You
As I’ve built Strength Running from a little blog to a bigger website to help you become a better runner, I’ve created more and more resources for you.
Ready to dive in and get more involved with the Strength Running mission – to run faster, easier, and with less injuries? I’ve created more opportunities to help you:
- My newsletter where I publish content never seen on the blog
- Run Your BQ (a more hands-on marathon program for runners who want to qualify for Boston)
- PR Race Plans (a personalized training plan for your next race)
- 1-on-1 Coaching (personalized training, advice, and unlimited email support to help you run faster)
- Injury Prevention for Runners (exactly what you need to run healthy long-term)
- Nutrition for Runners (how to fuel your runs, get energized, and maintain your ideal weight)
Many of these coaching resources, training options, and guides didn’t even exist a year ago. How much more awesome stuff will I have for you a year from now?!
I can give you a hint that I have two cool projects that are in development right now. The first will help everyone and will be a great way to get into my brain when it comes to running (any guesses?). It’s quite different than anything else I’ve done and I’m really excited to announce it in a few weeks.
The second project is more focused and will only help a smaller number of runners – but believe me, those runners have been asking me for this specific focus for a long while. It’s about time I delivered.
As always, subscribers to my private list get advanced notice of my new projects, plus exclusive information I don’t publish here on the blog. If you want in, you can sign up here or in the form at the bottom of this post.
More than anything, Strength Running is about you. Sign up to my private list and you’ll be invited to tell me more about your running:
- What kinds of articles would you like to see?
- Do you want more videos?
- Would audio versions of each article be useful?
- Why did you purchase a race plan or plateau buster from SR?
- Are there other fitness topics that I should cover?
To your running success,
– Jason.
