2020-2023 My Journey Away from Blogging to Bouncing Back

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WellthyFit.com has been about caring a damn – about Running, Fitness, Health, and the readers who found value in it. In 2017, Wellthyfit was the best blog on running in India – an authentic and inspiring assemblage of running wisdom and real-life running stories of runners of India.  

And then during Covid, an inexplicable quiet fell on this page.

The inexplicable quiet, on introspection, had everything to do with a major focus on my personal development.

The time I spent away from ideating, writing, and blogging on Wellthyfit, was put to working differently on my running and fitness journey. I curiously read about running – books, podcasts, and Instagram. I trained for and ran two full marathons. I ran my fastest half-marathon, pushed myself with running streaks, and joyfully took running to every place I’ve visited.

I took to strength training with my head and heart and in the process was reached out by my audience on Instagram to coach them too. What a dive it has been for me – an odyssey into my fitness journey.

Career-wise, I systematically changed my instruction pattern, reduced the numbers I took in, and interacted with my students with more intention. I became extremely conscious about my time. I sat through the early mornings looking at everything that was on my daily plate and most of the days it left me overwhelmed. I look back and pat myself for the way I changed the contents of my daily plate! Not an easy one, but I constantly asked myself this one question – If I don’t do this, Will I get time to do that? Over a period of four months, I learnt to make a daily and guilt-free ‘Not To Do List’.

In this very context, I also added a ‘free-time’ slot to my day. That time of the day – that is purely for me. I decide how to spend it. Over the years, this free time gave me the much-needed chance to work on my relationship with myself. To everyone who has met me in the last 2 years and messaged me later about how did I change myself so much – the secret ingredient is my daily free time. I take it any time of the day and decide how I want to spend it. It nourishes me.

So then what happened to my writing, to my blog page?

Did my love for writing fade? No. I wrote every day from 2020 to 2022. 500- 700 words a day. I had started working on a book and the short blog format conflicted with the long story format I was learning to write for the book. I decided to take a break from blogging because what I wrote every day was not the kind of content meant for wellthyfit.com. My social media carries my personal touch on my run-life and I don’t feel the need to do the same on my blog. 

On Wellthyfit, since its very beginning, I’ve covered mental health, fitness, health, yoga, and running. The wealth of information put down for the readers is incredible. The finest run mentors and coaches have contributed blogs on it. My runner friends who learned about running through their passion for it put down many series of blogs for the readers of Wellthyfit.

It was this quality that made Wellthyfit a shining cluster of blogs and gave it a returning audience. It is not easy to put out great quality content week after week. It was a robotic effort on my part for 4 consecutive years of churning out 2-3 quality blogs a week. The blogging world has gone through a visible evolution in the years I went on my blogging break. In the world of podcasts and video-logs, the number of ‘website-based’ run-bloggers has gone down. Most bloggers, who love writing and yet don’t blog enough anymore confess that creating quality “written’ content in a world drowning in content, feels daunting.. 

It’s halfway through 2023. I haven’t blogged for three years.

I read blogs daily and the blogging world still fascinates me. It excites me to write about my endeavors, readings, interactions, and how I am surviving and thriving as a progressive woman and mother in the era of ChatGPT sending parent guides.

I respect and admire competition and I love making friends with barrier breakers in the world of health and fitness. I like to bring their stories to Wellthyfit.

This page reminds me of the humbling hours of effort I put in for 4 years before I took a break. Will it again be the best blog on running in India?  Today, this question limits me. My drive is to write to move something in my reader – hopefully, an act of change and some introspection. To create something of lasting value has not been easy and it won’t be.

A quote that I recently read on another blog:

“An adventurous life does not necessarily mean climbing mountains, swimming with sharks, or jumping off cliffs. It means risking yourself by leaving a little piece of you behind in all those you meet along the way.” ― Shawna Grapentin

Wellthyfit definitely feels like a blogging adventure to me. I created it before my Instagram account came into action.

Blogging feels way more challenging than engaging the audience on Instagram. Some blogs are loved, and some are trashed as boring write-ups! We may start writing for ourselves, but sooner or later we open our writing to the world. But we don’t share our writings with the world to protect ourselves. I, along with other writers on Wellthyfit, take the risk with the hope that with every blog, we challenge a little bit of your thinking, and in the process, we never stop learning and growing in our writing craft.
I haven’t clicked on the publish button for nearly three years. I don’t know how to explain that I feel nervous. And there are so many more things am nervous about in life ( a long list 🙂 And that is Okay!!

Alright, ready to click the ‘publish’ button, but before that ,

sending you all love,

Tanya Agarwal