Same Owner, New Ship.

Last Updated on May 6, 2026 by Heather Hart, ACSM EP, CSCS

“There’s nothing more addictive or incredible in life than reinventing yourself and allow yourself to be different every day.” — Thalia

A few months ago while at work, a younger coworker told me that he had seen a video on Facebook of a fitness professional demonstrating proper form of an exercise that people commonly mess up. He said “I thought of you, because I think you’d be really good at that. You could probably easily get a ton of followers. Have you ever thought about making social media content?”

In that moment I nearly had one of those out of body experiences like you see in the movies where the last 16 years of my life flashed before my eyes.

The endless press trips – the CrossFit Games with GNC in Los Angeles, behind the scenes tours of Disney World with Run Disney in Florida, multiple visits to Runner’s World HQ in Pennsylvania, Reebok HQ in Massachusetts, NOW foods in Chicago, and so many others – simply because I had a blog “presence”.

The boxes of shoes and clothes and gear to review that seemingly showed up on a weekly basis, often from companies I didn’t even realize had my address.

Filming a commercial for Merrell shoes, being invited to speak at professional conferences and product development meetings, providing expert quotes published on the pages of fitness magazines.

The endless people I would run into out in public or at races that would say “Hey, are you Heather? I read your blog!”

These days it all feels like a fever dream, something reserved for perfectly polished young influencers with millions of followers. It’s easy to forget that it was a very significant part of my life for so long, long before filters and trending audio and algorithms were a thing.

A bittersweet smile crept across my face as I replied “Yeah, I’ve dabbled in content creation before. It’s a lot of work, and I just don’t have the energy or time for it right now.”

For nearly a decade and a half, I referred to this very space of the internet – my blog – as my “third child”. For many years I poured blood, sweat, and endless literal tears into this website. (Oh, and money. I’ve poured so much money into this space. Website building and maintenance can be pricey when you are inept at website coding.)

Initially this was a space for me to share my thoughts, my heartache, my running and race experiences, and of course, my loud-mouth-proverbial-soapbox moments. I would share pictures of my babies, write detailed race reports, and use song lyrics for post titles.

Over time this “blog” evolved to a platform to share my knowledge of running and exercise science to help educate others. As the internet shifted, so did my approach: topics were researched using pricey keyword search tools, pictures were carefully curated and captioned, and article titles written very specifically with SEO in mind.

There was even a string of years where this was ALL I did – earning an income from blogging was my full time job.

For so long I was fiercely protective of the space I had created and the words I had written. So I never imagined that one day I’d “ghost” my own blog… but here we are.

As you may or may not have noticed (and I wouldn’t blame you for not noticing), I’ve only written and published one single post in the last 21 months, and nothing at all in the past year. For someone who has seemingly ALWAYS had something to say, it’s felt very strange to be so silent.

I will admit that I’ve logged in no short of a dozen times over the last year, clicked “add a new post” and stared at the cursor blinking on the blank screen, wondering where I should even start. How did I get here, how do I even begin to explain it?

Do I talk about how Search Engine Optimization was without a doubt the knife to my writer’s heart that ultimately bled me dry of creativity? I hated it, hated what it did to my writing, and hated what it did to this blog. Can I even begin to describe the thrill I feel when I realize I no longer have to concern myself with what the Google algorithm thinks of my writing?

I suppose I should probably talk about the giant elephant in the room: the fact that running abruptly shifted from something that defined me, to something I occasionally do for 30 minutes once or twice a week if I have time and if I feel like it. I have just short of a million theories as to why that happened, but none of them really matter, because these days I’m just as happy not running as I was running, which is all that truly matters.

Naturally, I’m the type to have two giant elephants crammed in one room, so we’d also need to discuss the fact that I chose to step away from the business I had painstakingly built over the last 8 years*, because I could no longer pretend that I loved what I was doing. And I’d have to admit that while working full time from home may be the dream job for many, it simply wasn’t good for me. So I made the decision to go back to working with clients in person, which turned out to be a very healthy, fulfilling path for me to take (yes, even with the 4:00 am alarm clock).

(*For the record, HSEC is still going strong with Geoff at the helm. I’m only run coaching on a very select basis.)

And I guess while we’re talking about it, I would probably tell you how I struggled with the fact that the ultrarunning community that I held so close to my heart, and the people I genuinely felt were friends, very quickly drifted away when I stopped talking about running 24/7.

I’d also mention how after a lot of self reflection I eventually came to accept the idea that maybe I was the one who drifted away, because I was the one who no longer wanted to hear about running 24/7 (and for the record both things – talking endlessly about running and no longer really wanting to talk about running – are perfectly acceptable.)

Should I tell you about how a 14+ year coparenting relationship abruptly ended about a year and a half ago, and so I have thrown everything I have and am into being the sole* parent to two teenagers who are still navigating the heartbreak of that betrayal?

No doubt I’d ramble on endlessly about how being the mom to those teens is the single greatest joy and gift I will ever have in this lifetime, and how even though I am sometimes overwhelmed, I would do it a million, trillion, times over just to be around these two amazing human beings.

(*Massive shoutout to my husband, who has always been there, but has stepped up to fill the role of being a much needed positive male role model – and let’s be honest, chauffeur – in their lives.)

I’d like to shout loudly about how perimenopause has rocked me like an unexpected slap from cold metal snow shovel to the side of the face, and it has affected nearly every aspect of my life. That would be a quality rant/soapbox post if ever there was one. (And shoutout to HRT/MHT/whatever we’re calling it now, you’re the true hero in this story).

I absolutely want to tell you how much I love my new job(s), how I randomly and unexpectedly fell in love with dance fitness even though I have two left feet (shoutout to Fly Dance Fitness Myrtle Beach), and how I get so much joy from riding – and not racing – my bikes (I’m up to four).

I want to scream into the void about all of the atrocities going on in the world and our country at the moment, and simultaneously also want to point out all of the GOOD that still happens around us every single day.

There’s so much I want to say – so much I HAVE to say – and yet, there’s this overwhelming feeling deep down telling me “you’ve shared enough over the years Heather, you don’t need to explain or justify yourself anymore”.

I feel at peace with that answer, so I inevitably move my mouse to the top of the page to close the browser window, and leave this unfinished blog post for another day.

But I won’t lie, I do miss this place. Perhaps it’s time to make it mine again…