Happy Blogiversary, Deb Runs!

It’s hard to believe that a year has passed since I hit submit on my first blog post on January 31, 2013.  So in celebration, today’s post will be fun facts about Deb Runs, and a look back at some of my favorite posts…

1. Most viewed post:  Training Minions, Or You
2. Most views in one day: The Proposal, written by Julie
3. First person to comment:  Julie
4. Most frequent commenters (in order):  Meagan, Stephanie, Emma, and Logan
5. Most searched word that landed people on my blog:  Minion
6. Second most searched word that landed people on my blog:  Porta-potty
7. Top referring site to my blog:  Facebook
8. Number of countries represented by visits to my blog:  100
9. New people I met as a direct result of my blog: Meagan and one new client
10. New social media tools Deb Runs added:  Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Facebook (added Deb Runs to Personal Fit Fitness page)

January My first and only post was on the very last day of January.  Setting Up My Website Is So Confusing was only two sentences long.  Believe me, don’t waste your time clicking on the link!

February I started posting pretty regularly by mid-February, and my favorite from the month was Never Hungry, Never Full.

March I did a fun recap of my running adventures, A Run Down Memory Lane, taking me all of the way back to college.

April There were two posts in April that stand out and are impossible to choose between because they both were in honor of tragedies.  I wrote I Am A Runner after the Boston bombings…

And I wrote my first race recap, Virginia Tech 3.2-Mile Run in Remembrance, after running in this low-keyed race honoring the 32 students and faculty members we (Hokie Nation) lost on April 16, 2007.

May I ran a race close to my heart in May when I ran in the TKO Melanoma 5K Race, a race dedicated to the memory of a local wife and mom who lost her battle with melanoma.

June My favorite post from June was Where’s A Porta Potty When I Need It? It’s no secret that I get a little giddy when I see a porta-potty during my run.

A close second for June was Top Ten Reasons Not to Ask a Runner How Their Long Run Went.  Sadly, this post was way too easy for me to write, and I’m guilty as charged!

July Something very big for this runner mom happened in July when my son Joseph ran his first ultramarathon.  I organized the Cruisers’ 45-Mile Ultramarathon Training Run just for him, and the rest of the Cruisers pitched in and helped.

Also, that month I wrote a lighthearted look at running called It’s A Runner Thing.

August Nothing made me happier in August than to have Julie be a guest writer and post The Proposal a few days after she and Joseph got engaged.

And while Julie was back home writing guest posts for me, Bill and I spent a relaxing week at the beach on the Outer Banks.  I wrote a few posts while there, and Just Another Beach Run pretty much summed up our running along the shore.

September As Virginia Tech alumni, Bill and I spend a lot of weekends in Blacksburg during football season.  We spent one Saturday morning Hiking To Cascades Falls, something we had never done together.

That particular weekend had taken us to Blacksburg not for a football game, but for the Hokie Half Marathon.  We had perfect racing weather, and I got to run with my new running friend Meagan!

October In the spirit of marathon season, I wrote a Race Preparation series during early October, followed by several throwback Race Recaps.

But my world was shattered in late October when my dad died after a very short illness, and I found it very therapeutic writing Goodbye For Now, Dad.

November I had a lot of fun writing A Birthday Letter To Myself in mid-November…

And A Veteran’s Day Salute To My Papaw later that month.

December Race directors couldn’t have planned it any better if they’d tried when snow started falling just before the start of the Run With Santa 5K.  It was one of my favorite races of the year!

 January I started off the new year right by writing my 2014 Running Resolutions on New Year’s Day.

Now on to a fun thing that bloggers love to look at… what search terms were typed into Google that ended up landing people on our site.  My top search terms (after deb runs) were:

1. minions fitness
2. hokie half marathon
3. pooping porta-potty
4. minion training
5. fat minions
6. weight lifting minions
7. fitness memes
8. pinata cake
9. marine minion
10. how to display medals

And finally, the oddest/funniest search engine terms that landed people on my website were:

1. nike shoe lost at the beach
2. sumo mandarin
3. trader joe’s thai lime shrimp skewers
4. reeses pieces long run
5. crappy run
6. gu energy + urine
7. “i had to poop” bushes
8. pooping in the woods
9. dive bombing red shoulder hawks
10. i love pooping in porta potties
11. trader joe’s shrimp skewers
12. wegmans basting oil
13. minions dream house
14. are steakumms like the chip steaks from the past
15. people who pilgrimage to trader joes
16. will eating mulberries hurt children
17. visit grandma stick figure
18. north carolina “book sale”
19. do you sit on the porta potty
20. статуя усталый человек
21. fire hydrant flushing fitting
22. line of port-a-potties at a race image

• Questions:
• How did you find Deb Runs?
• If you write a blog, how long have you been writing it?
• Which would you like to see more of:  posts about running, general fitness, nutrition, or my family life and daily routines?