Focusing on service

http://staying.afloat.ca

I have been blogging on this site and posting content for approximately 2 years now. I enjoy creating this content and hope that it is interesting. Originally I started this blog as an experiment in blogging, SEO and advertising. Since I hadn't had any exposure to these areas I thought I should try it first hand.

I've been pretty happy with the results. I have a fair number of hits every month but, more importantly, I've gotten some excellent feedback on some of the articles I've written (especially the ones on boat building and my loft bed plans).

However, I've decided that I would like to write more about a career oriented passion of mine, service. Service quality is something that I deal with daily at my job. It is something that I spend a lot of time thinking about and I've come to have opinions about.

So, I have launched a sister site called "Staying afloat" (a play on words on my domain name and the topic). I will continue to post to this site with items that are related to general life, music, sailing, boat building and similar content. However, I will start posting (hopefully regularly) to the new site.

Come visit Staying Afloat (http://staying.afloat.ca) if you have an interest in service delivery and customer satisfaction. Otherwise, stay here and continue to enjoy this less focused content.

Vibram FiveFingers - A nice idea but...

I saw a review on Michael Hyatt's site of his experiences with Vibram FiveFingers. I thought this would be a good opportunity to update my own review.

I have had my FiveFingers for almost 2 years now. Initially I was using them as my exclusive running/training shoe. I bought them in January and ran in them exclusively until April when I experience some foot problems. This actually turned out to be a fracture caused by repetitive stressing of my foot bones.  This was a prime example of training in them too hard to quickly. While I thought I was easing my way slowly enough into longer distances, the break tells a different story.

Once I recovered from my break (8 weeks later) I took a hiatus from my Vibrams. I was a little gun shy. Eventually I pulled them on again a couple of months later and remembered why I loved running in them. However, I have kept them as a secondary part of my training. I run in them on a semi-regular basis as a supplement to my training rather than a primary trainer.

There is no doubt that barefoot running is a fabulous way to work muscles that you forgot you had and it has help modify my stride so that I no longer have knee issues. However, I am not convinced that it is the best option for long distance or technical running. I do multi-day adventure racing,  I need a rock solid shoe that I can forget about.

I have since settled on Solomon XT Wings 2 as my primary shoe. They are a stellar trail running shoe and are almost bomb proof for long hard races. I will continue to use my Vibrams but probably not frequently.