It's been a while since I added to this blog. In fact, I have the draft of an update from March 2019 that remains 90% complete. There are a couple of reasons why I have not found the energy to blog.
Search engine bias
The first reason is that the increasing commercial bias of search engines means that, if one searches a particular term like 'Rainow 5 fell race', several pages of results for estate agents with properties in or near Rainow will be returned. Using quote marks and excluding words etc. has no effect on 'promoted' results. I know search engines are in business to make money, but do they really think I am going to impulse buy property when searching for fell race results?
I recently searched for a fellow bloggers site, it took many attempts before I found his once popular blog! One ends up wondering whether it is worth writing a post if no one is ever going to find it. Analysis of data shows that many pages are delisted by search engines, so will never appear in results (curiously, images are likely to remain). I have started to use 'DuckDuckGo', which improves things sometimes.
Arthritis
The second reason is that worsening arthritis has meant that I have had to stop running altogether. This has not had a beneficial effect on my morale. I missed 'Mow Cop' last year, for the first time in the race's history, which was very upsetting. I managed the Rainow five, but it was clear, long before the end of the race, that this really was the end for me.
Rainow 5 2019, cakes. Fantastic effort by all concerned, once again. Heck I'm going to miss all this.
Future
I have decided to continue to blog, on walks and rides and maybe a little on my experience of running. Other peoples blogs were inspirational for me when I returned to running, much more so than many 'running' websites (many of which, really, just wanted to sell me stuff). Just hope a few more manage to find my posts somehow.
