Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

This March will be my 8th year of blogging at Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes (formerly 25 Before 25). In that time, I've lived in Boston, New York, DC, and now, Baltimore.

I've blogged about running, traveling, life, big changes, hopes, dreams, fears, and everything in between. While I've been really inconsistent with posting over the last two years, I'm really trying to change that. I love this space for everything it is - from the wildly embarrassing posts I wrote as a 22-year-old that I'm so tempted to delete to the training plans I've logged, the recipes I've shared, and all of the excitement some of you have shared through my biggest life moments. 

I've met some of my very best friends through this blog, friends who I truly couldn't imagine my life without. 

As I've been trying to write more posts and be more consistent, I've trying to figure out what I really want to be writing about. I'm not a 20-something blogger anymore and as hard as it is for me to say, running isn't everything for me right now the way that it was when I first started this blog. I still have dreams of running a sub-4 marathon and I know that one day, I will but this blog is so much more than just running. 

When I started this blog, I did it out of boredom and, some of my earlier posts definitely reflect that, but as I've continued blogging, I've done it for two primary reasons: 1) this amazing community and 2) because I genuinely love sharing my travel stories, my race recaps, and a lot of the details about my life!

But there is so much from this blog that's missing! I lived in DC for five years and never wrote any kind of post about my favorite things to do there, places to go, or things to see. It's one of the top tourist destinations in America and I never really shared anything about my slice of home, except for a few "This is what I did this weekend" posts! Even though I'm living in Baltimore now, I'm still working in DC a few days each week so I plan to change that, while also sharing all about Baltimore as I'm discovering it! I want my travel posts - whether they're about DC, Baltimore, or my latest international adventure - to be useful! I absolutely love when I get emails or comments asking me about a place I've been or telling me that my post inspired someone to book a trip somewhere!

This is why I've continued blogging. And in that time, I've started reading really different types of blogs. I adore home design blogs and cooking blogs, I love reading career and finance advice, all of the things that are relevant to my life right now!

So, as I'm looking ahead to celebrating 8 years of blogging, I'm planning to take my blog into my 30th year and start writing more about the things that are actually relevant to my life. It's been 6 weeks since we moved into our Baltimore home and we've barely started exploring but I love it! I want to share Baltimore with you. and DC! I want to share what I actually do for a living and why, even though I fell into it by accident, I love it. I want to share our home and what it looks like as we're starting to make it feel more like home every day. I want to share advice about the worst job interview I ever had (and how to avoid making that mistake) and how we were actually able to afford a home, and what we did to do so! I want to share all of the recipes I have brewing in my head. I want to share the struggles I've had this last year in the hopes that anyone going through what I have knows that they aren't alone.

I still plan to be a "lifestyle blogger" but I want to be more intentional about what I'm sharing and why I'm sharing it. Too often, I've written blog posts for the sole purpose of posting. I still have every intention of Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes being an outlet for me to share about my life, but I also want it to be a resource for those who are looking for a new travel destination, a new book to read or want to start running. And I want a lot of that to be driven by the very people who have continued reading this blog whether I've posted every day or haven't posted in a month.

So I'm asking all of you - what would you like to see more of? What brings you back to the blogs you read each day?

Over the next few weeks, I'll be working on new, more intentional content, planning some fun trips, and thinking about what I want to share about DC and Baltimore! I'll also be working on a new blog design! I can't wait for it to unfold and I hope you'll follow along!