The Stride Report was first launched in March of 2017.
Back then, the site design was sloppy.
The articles lacked proper sentence structure.
We only posted new content once every three days.
And our writers? There was only one (me).
Now, the story is a bit different. We have six different contributors and have more on the way. We've redesigned our pages, produced more articles, added new site features, and ensured that TSR was going to be valuable even without a recent post.
However, there was (and still is) a grand vision in mind for this site. We want to make this as big and as legitimate as possible while still producing high-quality content. I don't think TSR would have the support it does today without that being our main focus.
Of course, in order to achieve those goals, we can't be complacent. We have to try new things, implement new features, expand our focus, and simply work harder. No one ever said that this would be easy...
It's been almost 18 months since The Stride Report began, and we've been able to gather all of your criticism and praise during that time. However, the most clear and obvious issue is our lack of coverage for women in the sport.
The criticism is understandable.
It's probably been frustrating if you're the other 50% of the distance runners around the country. Women have worked so hard to gain respect and attention within the running community. They are just as successful as the men.
That is why today, we are officially beginning our expansion into women's coverage of collegiate distance running. It's a phase in our site life cycle that we have been promising to our readers for over a year now.
Although we are making an effort to expand our coverage, we also need something from our audience: Patience.
Right now, The Stride Report is completely built and centered around men's distance running. Whether it's the results bar, the news box, our DATA page, KOLAS page, RANKINGS page, or whatever else you can think of, it will take time to fully integrate women's coverage into the identity of our site.
In other words, it's not going to happen overnight.
Additionally, we need our readers to understand that our knowledge of women's distance running in the NCAA may not be as strong as the men (at least not right now). That's simply because we've been focused on the men for an incredibly long period of time. We haven't had the time to research women's results like we have for the men (until now).
Regardless of these bumps in the road, we're taking another step forward and we couldn't be more pumped about it.
So what does mean for our men's coverage? Will there be any less content on the men than there was before?
In short, no.
We plan on keeping most, if not all, of our current writers on track with what they were originally assigned to do. They have been creating awesome content and we're not trying to change a good thing.
That doesn't mean they won't write for anything on women, but you shouldn't expect to see a notable or significant drop in how many articles we are producing for the men (at least, that's not our intention).
Instead, we are excited to announce that Sam Ivanecky will be joining the TSR crew and beginning our coverage on the women's side! Sam will collaborate with myself and the rest of our team to bring you rankings, previews, in-depth discussions, and so much more.
HOWEVER, publishing new articles will only get easier if we have your help. If you're curious about writing and want to get involved in our coverage of NCAA women's distance running, we implore you to send us an email and express your interest. We believe that moving into the women's side could generate an entire new reader segment that was never there before. It could lead to massive growth and get us closer to our goal of obtaining a sponsor / sponsors.
Stay tuned to the site this week as we begin to bring you NCAA women's content! We've got some great things on deck, especially with a big weekend of competition ahead of us.
As always, never hesitate to send us an email. We love talking with our readers. Your criticism, questions, ideas, and general comments are always welcomed.
Until then, keep reading and spread the word! The more often you tell your family, friends, and teammates about us, the faster we can grow and the more content we can produce.
From myself and the rest of the TSR staff, we can't thank you enough for your support.
Sincerely,
Garrett Zatlin
TSR Admin