Note: Evan's blog is back.. no wait it is gone again, no it is back again, or is it gone again? Any how check here. You just gotta love the guy;-)
As the "Crypt Keeper" for Evan Hone's Blog(google, "Evan Hone Blog" and you will know what I am talking about) I thought I should put up this memorial for those of you who would like to pay your respects to an irreverent ultrarunning blog gone before it's time.
EJ- When and why did you start blogging?
Evan- I started the blog back in 2008. I was living in a 1 bedroom cabin in the Chugach State Park 100 yards from the Crow Pass trailhead. Beside Geoff there was zero representation in the mountain running world coming from Alaska. I thought it would be fun to write about my absurd adventures in the "last Frontier". I thought it would be a local thing but I started getting quite a bit of traffic from the lower 48.
EJ- Under what names did your blog appear chronologically and was there a reason for the name changes?
Evan- In the beginning I was the Eagle River Runner. I am from Eagle River and my parents still live there. It is a town 10 miles north of Anchorage. I then moved to California and changed the blog name several times after that. Every title ended up being worse than the last.
EJ- What was your favorite post?
Evan- Every post was terrible. HA! I did have some good ones about my adventures in the wilderness with my dog Ernie. I also had a lot of fun making fun of people that wear short shorts, arm sleeves, heartrate monitors, and GPS watches.
EJ- What post still makes you cringe?
Evan- A couple of shoe reviews I did. The 2 kinds of blogs I hate are when people write about their weekly mileage and when they do gear reviews. I am not a gear guy and do not keep a record of how much I run so I am never interested in that crap and can't believe I wrote about it occasionally.
EJ- Was blogging satisfying and worth your time?
Evan- Nope.
EJ- Did you take it personally if there were few or no comments for a post?
Evan -I always wondered about why some posts that I thought were boring would generate a ton of comments and some that I thought were fantastic generated little interest.
EJ- Did you check your stats often?
Evan- Nope. I did not even realize there was a way to check the stats for the first couple of years. My boss gets pissed about how little I know about computers.
EJ- Why did you stop blogging?
Evan- I have a couple of kids (had a little girl in August) and a full time career. I do not have time to obsess about running like I used to.
EJ- Why the avatar of the large guy?
Evan- A lot of people take this stuff way too seriously. I thought that picture was hilarious. A glam shot of me wearing short shorts would have been too cheesy. HA!
EJ- Do you miss blogging?
Evan- Nope. I like being away from it. Occasionally I hack into my wife's facebook account and I see how consumed people become with running. It is literally all they talk about. I do not want to be one of those people that lets running consume their lives. Running is a major part of who I am but once I am healthy I am done talking about it and plan on just putting in the time to get better.
EJ- Do you think you will blog again?
Evan- I doubt it. There are already too many blogs out there. Also now that I live in California there just isn't as many cool things to write about. People down here think it is epic when they run in the rain or in a little bit of snow. Thousand Oaks has some good mountain running but it is not Alaska. I have yet to be charged by a large brown bear down here.
EJ- What was the worst/best thing that you got from blogging?
Evan- It is very time consuming but I did like to look back on past posts to remember some of the fun times had on the trails.
EJ- How is your hip?
Evan- Terrible. I am now having surgery on my right hip (labrum FAI) very soon. Same thing I had on my left hip. I have been running injured since August of 2009. I would give anything to be healthy again and be able to run solid mileage. My last race I ran was Leona Divide 50 last April and my training for the 2 months leading up to it was maybe 50 miles per week because I had to take so much time off because of hip problems.
EJ- What kind of training are you doing these days?
Evan- My training is hit or miss because of my hips. I view myself as a mountain runner and not an ultrarunner. It is all about climbing and I only like to do races that have a lot of climbs. As long as my quads are always sore I am a happy man.
EJ- Are you doing your 100-ups daily?
Evan- Not sure what this means? Push-ups?
EJ- What do you think of people who do google searches for you?
Evan- Not sure. There are a lot better, more interesting runners out there.
EJ- Have you ever google searched another runner/s and why?
Evan- Sure. I like to google friends and read publications that talk about them. I also keep a close eye on the Alaskan running scene.
EJ- Any "Final Words" you would like to add about blogging, Bloggers, Blogs or ultrarunning?
Evan- I spent a couple of hours volunteering/hanging out at the Santa Monica 50k yesterday. I was so jealous of the runners out there. I really just want to get healthy.
Evan, Thank-you so much for answering my questions and all the best with your upcoming surgery.
EJ
