How I Feel About Blogging When I Started VS. Now

*The top of this post is all updates made in May of 2021, over a year after starting the blog. Original post is at the bottom. xo MK

Whoa! If you're reading this post, let me first thank you for stopping by to the very first blog post I ever published on this blog! It's absolutely crazy for me to check in over a year after this post and see how far this blog has changed.

When I first started the blog and wrote this post, I was essentially jumping into the world of blogging with a blindfold on.... and everything seems so different now.

Well okay, I had spent literally years hemming and hawing (is this still a phrase?) about whether or not I should start a blog. So the blindfold was on yeah, but I was trying to peep out of the bottom where I saw a sliver of light peeking in. I was researching and learning how to start a blog here and there, so I did know some stuff.

I just never had the courage to actually begin. And as many bloggers will tell you, the hardest part is actually starting. You kind of just have to do it and rip the band-aid off or you'll literally never start.

All Parts Of Starting A Blog Are Hard

Unfortunately, this is all a bunch of hooey (again, what's with my wording today?) and the hardest part of blogging is quite literally everything that happens after you hit publish on your first post.

The niching, the SEO, the research, the website design, the re-website design, the social channels, the email marketing, the picture taking, editing, re-doing, the brainstorming, the affiliate marketing...I needn't go on.

It's hard guys. You spend a lot of time wondering if anyone will ever care. If you'll ever make $100,000 a month on your blog like every. other. blogger. seems. to. say.

If I read one more "how I got my blog to 16 million views in 3 days" blog posts I'm literally going to scream. It might be possible that this happened to some people. But the chances of it happening to you are no where near as high (and as easy) as these bloggers claim in their posts IMO.

I know I'm not being entirely fair and that I might just be mad I'm not a million-dollar blogger yet. :) There are so many ins and outs to blogging and I'm very aware that I've barely scratched the surface of them all and that there are plenty of things I could be doing to help my blog out.

I'm mainly saying that it is not easy and requires thousands of hours of work that is uncompensated, draining, and oftentimes frustrating.

But it is also amazing in so many ways - I've reclaimed so much joy, control, creativity and peace from my time blogging. I've developed hundreds of skills I never dreamed of, learned I wanted to work in freelance writing and content creation more than I knew, and finally put together a beautiful blog of which I am so so proud.

Deciding What Type Of Blog You Want To Write Is Hard

If you've been with me from the start (looking at you my initial 3 loyal fans lol), you remember that this blog started out as mkontherun .com and I said I was going to talk about my life as a track and field professional athlete, sprinkling in other things about fitness, nutrition, some gear I used, etc.

Boy was I wrong! I started a blog to find joy in my life again and have a passion outside of my life as a runner...so why on Earth was I writing a blog about my life as a runner?! Thinking back, I'm like whatttt was I doing?! However, I know why it happened and it's a huge moment of reflection for me.

My social media following and the major components of my life all relate back to one thing: track and field. I mean it was my career now, what I focused on most in college, and how I navigated my way through high school to set up the rest of my life. When starting a blog, you want to

1) write about what you know and

2) write about what your followers/readers want to read.

Boom: My blog about running was born.

Now I did acknowledge to myself that I wanted an outlet outside of track and to talk about fun bloggy things other than running. However, my dominating thought process was: "people like your content about running - write. about. running."

If I made posts that weren't about my life as a professional runner...no one was going to read it. Not a soul. That's what I told myself - because if you looked at my Instagram, that was essentially what was happening there.

I now know, if you're writing about something you don't want to write about, especially personal to you and as part of something that you want to build, grow and eventually monetize... you're gonna hate it.

For a personal blog, you have to write about what you really want to write about and make it into something your readers want to see. Now, my blog has been rebranded into a resource meant to inspire healthy living through fitness inspiration and lifestyle hacks and it's specifically targeted at busy people looking for affordable ideas to keep healthy living simple and make sporty chic.

Yeah, I still talk about track/running because this is a lifestyle blog after all and it is something that shapes my lifestyle, and ideally many readers could relate.

Why I Started A Blog Is One Thing...But Why I Continued Is Another

So I niched down, without losing myself while also adding other things I care about. And I'm finally really happy about that and ready to grow for real.

In a funny way, the purpose of starting my blog hasn't changed, even though so much other stuff has. (Like literally, the entire design layout of my blog has changed completely.) The path to get here was entirely different than I imagined, but I'm glad I opened myself up to the journey and let it take me where it did.

I would be such a different person right now without it. I started my blog as MKOnTheRun, and part of me still is that girl (confused, identity-a-mess, just lookin to write), but I'm now madelinekopp.com and loving where it's going.

PS. #MKOntheRun will always be my tag. :)

Original post follows:

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Why On The Run?

Welcome to the very first post of On the Run!

For far too long, I have been dreaming of starting a blog about my journey as a professional athlete. I couldn't be more excited to finally stop making excuses and put my plans into action! While this could end up taking several different directions, I hope it has some effect on my goals for this year, my real reason for starting On the Run.

On the Run

This past year was one of the most difficult- if not the most- years of my life. Brand new city, brand new training, and what little of a plan I did have was falling apart left and right. It didn't seem this way at the time, but I now know how important this past year was for me! Hard times reveal a lot, and I most definitely learned a lot about myself.

To relight my passion, I've readjusted my mentality and redefined what this journey means to me. I acknowledged the need for more accountability and introspection.

Whether I'm literally running, or frantically running around trying to get everything done, I am always on the move. This blog is dedicated to how much we can get done, even when we're On the Run.

-MK