Zurich Writers Workshop and Making Use of Social Media

This weekend I am currently taking part in the Zurich Writers Workshop.  I will probably write a separate post about that later, but the part I found the most relevant to this blog (so far) was the part about the use of social media to promote a book or a blog.  I was extremely impressed just how many stats the workshop instructor Diccon Bewes (author of the Bestseller "Swiss Watching") was able to provide about the traffic on his blog, courtesy of Google Analytics.

He was able to tell us how many readers he had, how many posts per session each viewer was reading (on average), how much time the reader spent on his blog (on average), even down the detailed level of which Canton in Switzerland they were logging in from.

From the basic stats on the blogger dashboard all I currently know is how many page views I get per month, which countries those views originate from and the referring URLs.  I am more interested in knowing how many readers I have than how many page views I have, as it may be that I have just a handful of readers that are reading lots of posts or it may be that I have lots of readers reading single posts.  I would also be interested in knowing which Cantons my Swiss audience comes from.

I have just installed Google Analytics and over the next few weeks I will try and make some use of the statistics it generates.  Diccon for instance noted that most of his traffic comes from either Canton Zurich or Canton Bern and that no traffic at all has come from Canton Uri.  He can use this information to try and tailor his writing to his specific audience.  There is no point in him writing tons and tons of articles about Canton Uri and nothing about Canton Zurich and Canton Bern when most of his audience comes from those cantons.

Diccon also gave us lots of useful tips on driving traffic to a blog via Twitter and Facebook.  He recommended for instance setting up a Facebook page separate to the one you use to communicate with your friends and family, so that you can retain some privacy on your normal facebook page whilst still allowing strangers to join the purpose built facebook page.

There is a competition open to all of us workshop participants to write a blog post about any topic relevant to Switzerland, and the best few will be posted on the popular "Newly Swissed" blog www.newlyswissed.com.  I think I will write one about the great resources that Zurich makes available to runners such as Finnish tracks, Vita Parcours, numerous drinking fountains and public 400m athletic tracks.  You would be hard pushed to find all of that within easy reach of the city centre in most other world cities.

How embarrassing it can be to do a one to one Pilates lesson when you have a dodgy stomach

It does not happen all the time, but sometimes my stomach gets a little gaseous.  That does not normally present much of a problem during day to day activities, but when doing a one to one Pilates lesson where you are very close to the instructor and you are having to strain hard as you tense up your powerhouse, it can lead to embarrassing moments.  I am sure the instructor is used to it, and it probably happens very often, but still, for me it is rather embarrassing to let one rip in front of her.

This afternoon my stomach was not feeling that great.  It may have been the mix of wasabi peanuts, goats milk, carrot juice, dates and greek salad that I had for lunch.  I am not quite sure, but I was a little concerned about how the Pilates lesson this evening would go.  I made sure to go to the toilet before I started, but part way through one of the exercises I had to excuse myself rather quickly and go to powder my nose yet again.  Luckily I got through the rest of the lesson without any further problems.

In the last few minutes of the lesson I got a chance to try out the foot corrector that I mentioned in a previous post.  Martha thinks that it will help me to toughen up my feet, ready for my next ultra in August.  She said that my foot currently moves in slightly strange ways and that she will try to correct that over the coming weeks.  I know for a start that I over-pronate, as I always used to wear support shoes.

In addition to introducing the foot corrector, she also stopped using the rubber pad on the foot bar of the reformer.  That makes it slightly more uncomfortable for my feet but she said that will help to toughen them up as well.

A long hard interval session

Tonight's coached running session was the last of the current series.  For me it was my second session, as I only started going last week for the first time.  We met down at the Saalsporthalle and started the workout promptly at 7pm.

The first exercise to help us warm up involved running up and down stairs repeatedly, interspersed with longer flat sections.  After that we headed over to the sports fields and did a quick lap whilst Jeff placed some cones on the ground, ready for the next drill.

Just as we finished the quick lap of the sports field there was a thunderstorm and hailstones started falling from the heavens.  It was a little cold so we were keen to get moving again in order to stay warm.  Most of us were not equipped with wet weather gear as the day had seemed rather sunny and pleasant beforehand.  Luckily the thunderstorm quickly passed.

I cannot recall the name of the next drill but it basically involved laying out a course shaped like a cross or 4 spokes of a wheel.  The idea then was that we split into 4 groups, one per spoke, and for six minutes we had to sprint from the centre of the wheel out to the edge of our spoke and jog slowly back, then repeat for the next spoke (moving in a clockwise manner) and so on.  For the following six minutes we had to do the same but in reverse, so jogging slowly to the end of the spoke and then sprinting back to the centre.  After that we did the same but in reverse for a further 3 minutes, and then we reversed it again for the final 3 minutes, making a total of 18 minutes of interval running.

There were 3 of us in our group.  One guy was the same guy from last week who just beat me by a fraction of a second in the timed 1,600m run, and the other guy was by chance someone that just completed the Marathon des Sables 2012 like myself.  So we were a strong group and very competitive.  That meant it was an extremely hard interval session for all 3 of us.  After the interval session finished we all shook hands like good sporting gentlemen should.

A few minutes of rest and then it was time for another drill.  This once involved splitting into groups (and guess who I ended up in a group with) and then seeing which group was fastest to retrieve the cones placed at the ends of the spokes.  Once at the end of the spoke we each had to do 10 squats before running back with the cones.  Our spoke was uphill, so the other groups had to do 10 squats extra as a handicap.  Unfortunately we still did not win, but you cannot win them all eh.

The final part of the workout was a slingshot relay in pairs.  One of the pair had to do squats whilst the other one ran back towards the Saalsporthalle, and then when that person had had enough running they had to stop running and start doing squats.  The other partner would then stop doing squats and start running until they had passed their partner, and continue as far as they wanted, and then the process would repeat until all pairs arrived back at the Saalsporthalle.  I paired up with one of the ladies and we were the first pair back, which pleased me greatly.  I did narrowly manage to avoid getting bitten by a few off-lead dogs on the way though.  I was pretty mad that the owner let them off lead when they can see that there is a group of runners nearby, probably knowing full well that the dogs were likely to chase us.  Even if the dogs were only trying to intimidate us, that is not acceptable.  Owners of dogs that like to chase runners, I call on you to be more responsible in public areas and to keep your dogs on the lead at all times, especially when you can see that there are runners nearby.

When I finished the session I felt a little sick.  Some of the others went to a restaurant to celebrate the end of the series, but I felt like I needed to go home and rest.  I was most likely dehydrated as I had forgotten to take water along with me, and I felt much better after drinking and eating something.  It is also possible that I pushed myself a little bit too hard as well.  I am not used to doing interval sessions yet.

There is no coached session next week.  The following series will start in 2 weeks time.