Before running changed my life, I wrote an article about my first blogging year a year ago. I’m two months late in posting what should be a second anniversary post, but so much has changed since then that it didn’t seem appropriate. My original diary entry looked at my favourite posts or the most significant ones uploaded during my first year of blogging. In case you didn’t get the chance to read it, I ended the original post with a sentence:
“I need to keep going if I want to still be here one year on from now.”
The final line reminded me that I had already taken an unplanned break and needed to focus more if I wanted to build something long-lasting. However, after I posted the original one-year diary entry, I posted another four times before I stopped planning, preparing, and scheduling more. This wasn’t a planned hiatus, nor was it forced on me.
I’d always intended to resume my blogging career. The problem is, once you stop working and fall out of the old routines, it’s challenging to pick up where you left off. To make matters worse, at least from a blogging point of view, my personal life had taken a new direction. It had found more goals. Now, the direction I wanted to take with my blog differed from my life’s direction. One year on, the blog name was the same, but I wasn’t.
A New Year, a New Me
After some personal issues at the end of 2023, I entered 2024 optimistically. It was this new positive determination that I set out to break old routines and find new passions. It was then, that running changed my life. It was introduced to me by a friend, William Steel, a wildlife photographer who had already failed to inspire me to start running after my breakup in August 2023. Running wasn’t something I ever saw consuming me or ever planned. And yet, it saw my focus shift, not only as a blogger but also as a chef and an eater.
When I first started cooking, I always wanted to learn new techniques that I could take home to impress my family and friends. And it worked the other way around, too. I cooked at home, eager to learn and build on my skills and repertoire to impress older, more experienced chefs. The determination to learn first led to SaltToTaste: delicious restaurant-quality recipes served easily at home.
But running changed my lifestyle. I suddenly found myself sacrificing the time I once spent developing recipes and writing blog posts and investing it into running more. Besides, the recipes posted on SaltToTaste often use a lot of butter and cream. I didn’t know the carbohydrate content of anything, nor did I care before. But now, I craved the energy carbohydrates would give me.
I wanted to run. I wanted to eat to run better. I wanted to go on a new journey and learn how to combine my old passion with my new love. I am a chef. I am a runner. A rebrand was required, but I still didn’t quite know what my new identity should look like.
The Running Chef
The first name I came up with to describe my new blog niche seemed obvious at first since I was a chef, and I ran. I didn’t need to be a marketing genius. My latest blog should have started there and then, but self-doubt kicked in. I’m not an expert. I didn’t know if I was the best person to educate the masses on nutrition. It suddenly felt too simple.
Sure, I have a degree in sports science, but I haven’t used it or really thought about it since I graduated over 12 years ago. By the time I posted the recipe for the first year and those last four posts, I felt like a fraud writing nutritional recipes and calling myself a runner. I’d only been running for a few months. What made me an expert, or at least someone best placed to educate people who were potentially more informed than I?
By the time I’d run my first marathon in June, my extremely slow time didn’t fill me with any more confidence that I’d earned the running chef moniker. I was a chef. I ran, but I wasn’t any more qualified than anyone else to talk about the best recipes to fuel running. Slowly, the name faded from consciousness, and SaltToTaste lay dormant for another six months as I trained for my first full marathon.
I Ran a Marathon
While recovering from my first marathon, we spent the week in Norfolk. There, I wrote the article to kick-start my new blogging career. The article, “I Ran a Marathon,” was supposed to kickstart my new blog and update readers on the new direction my life had suddenly taken me. However, I needed a name, so I brainstormed some ideas.
I hadn’t forgotten the original name but remained adamant that it didn’t belong to me. It didn’t feel like me. So to help me brainstorm, I typed prompts into Chat GPT with numerous different words, from road running to trail running to healthy eating, nutrition for runners, and so on. There were some good names. And some I didn’t like at all. They all bestowed a sense of identity that didn’t match who I was as a runner. I loved trail running, but sometimes running on roads was easier. And sure, I loved breaking personal records and running faster than I ever had, but I also enjoyed walking for a km or two, especially on hills.
The blog name stopped me. I couldn’t think of one that felt like me. If only there were a way of focusing on the thing I truly identified with. You could label me a slow runner, judge me for not fitting the image of one, or tell me I know nothing about running. You could even argue my skill in the kitchen, belittle my art, dislike my food, but you couldn’t deny where I went every morning at 7 am. I was a chef.
Running Changed My Life
Once I’d recovered from the marathon training and the marathon itself, I started preparing and training for my first ultramarathon. From the 16-week training block to the race itself, the importance of nutrition became clearer. It didn’t just help me run longer; it helped me recover, sleep, and feel better overall.
I reduced my marathon time during a training run to further increase my confidence. While intentionally running slower than I could, I still managed to run faster than in my first marathon. That was tremendous progress in only 6 months. Not only that, but the race itself was tough, and I had to dig deep and fight to the cold, bitter end to complete it. As stupid as it may sound, I’d started to feel like a runner, like I deserved to identify as one.
But the continued increase in view counts on Salt To Taste forced me to make the much-needed change. They weren’t ever going to help me build a new life, but they pushed me to seriously make my plans for a rebrand a reality since potential success was possible. If I can stop posting and still see growth, imagine what I could do with a regular posting schedule.
A New Me
I’ll reveal all soon, but I didn’t finish the ultra-marathon. I ran out of time and only completed the marathon distance. It may have felt like failure, but I felt like quitting throughout, but I didn’t. The fact that I pushed on inspired me and forced me to change the way I saw myself. After all, in the face of failure, I still powered through. Grit. Determination.
From the failure and the overtraining, I knew the key to my future running success lay in nutrition. I needed to eat better and understand what it meant to eat clean. So, I decided on a new blog niche that should include nutritional recipes while I learned what nutrition meant. And yet, weeks passed with no change to my blog.
I didn’t have a name. I couldn’t decide on any of the brainstormed AI names, and I wanted something that could evolve alongside me, my journey, and my blog. I’d always be a chef, always want to learn new authentic recipes, but Salt To Taste would need to die. In its place, a new blog would form in its ashes—one that would help me learn and provide a place for new runners to learn about nutrition, maybe even how to cook.
I am a chef. I am a runner. It was the most fitting name after all.
Running changed my life.
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