Being sick is no fun. Especially when you're not really, really, sick, but you're just sick enough to be unable to function like a normal person and about the only thing you can do is sit in bed and watch TV, while repeatedly blowing your nose and sucking on cough drops.

That's been the story of my life the last several days and it's perfectly miserable. I'm starting to go a little stir crazy.

On account of this crappy sickness, I don't really have any fun workouts to share with you, so I thought I would shift gears a little bit today and tell you the story of why I started blogging.

I'm taking part in the Bliss Connect #6WeeksofBliss challenge so over the next several weeks, I'll be sharing several fun stories like this.

Why I Started Blogging:

It's been nearly six years since I was sitting in my sophomore year dorm room at the University of Maryland starring at the confirmation letter on my computer screen.

"Congratulations Jessica. You are registered for the 2006 Baltimore Marathon."

Emily, my roommate at the time (and still best friend to this day) was sitting at her desk practically giddy with excitement, singing a little song about how I was going to run my first marathon.

I, however, was sitting at my own desk feeling a little bit overwhelmed.

I didn't know the first thing about running or training for races, but I sure as heck knew I needed something to keep me accountable in my training.

I Googled "blogs", Blogger.com came up as the first search result, and I typed in some ridiculousness and pushed publish, and this little blog was born.

The first post I ever wrote was such a rambling mess, I sometimes cringe looking back on it. My first several months of blogging, I talked about nothing but my marathon training: how my runs went, what the weather was like, just how slow I went (12 minute miles, if you're curious).

My blog existed to help me keep track of my training.

And then one day, someone left a comment -- a really nice, positive and encouraging comment.


And when I posted questions I had about running or training, people started answering. It was like I suddenly had a life-line to a small group of people who had done this marathon training thing before and wanted to help me.

My little community of readers encouraged me when I had bad runs, offered support when I questioned whether I could actually run a marathon and virtually cheered me on when I crossed the finish line in Baltimore.

I say it time and time again, but I have learned so much from the collective wisdom of the running and blogging communities. That's what keeps me coming back to blogging. Sure, I like a place to ramble about my workouts to keep me accountable, but more importantly, I love this community so much.

I love the advice and the support, and I love reading your blogs to learn more and be challenged to try new things (like my upcoming tri, that was totally peer pressure from you guys!) And I have loved the opportunity to meet many of you in person and I hope to meet many more of you in the future!

And on the note that I'm starting to get a smidge sappy and sentimental, so I'm going to wrap this post up.

But tell me, why do you blog? Or why do you read blogs? How did you get started and what keeps bringing you back?