This is the third of five posts that will honor one of my dearest friends, Lucy. She’s an über-running badass and is running the Chicago Marathon THIS COMING SUNDAY.

For my next bit about Lucy (regular non-Lucy posts will resume post Chicago Marathon), I’d like to talk about the fact that thanks to her enthusiasm and commitment to health, my google reader is now filled to the brim with fitness bloggers. This deserves both a “Hey thanks, Lucy!” and also an “I hate you, Lucy.” But mostly the former.

Before talking to Lucy about running, and health in general, my Google reader was 90% political blogs, 9% feminist blogs, and 1% Baltimore blogs (shout out: The Baltimore Chop). Now, it’s about 44% political blogs, 5% feminist blogs, and 50% fitness blogs. Oh, and 1% dooce because, I mean, duh.

I ask you – who am I?

So yes, Lucy got me into fitness blogs… It started with Losing Weight in the City and Ben Does Life… and from there it snowballed into Ali on the Run, A Healthy, Happier Bear, Carrots ‘N’ Cake, fANNEtastic food, Kath Eats Real Food, Roni’s Weigh, Run Eat Repeat, and Sweat Once a Day (she just completed an IRONMAN – so badass), and the list could go on for days. In fact, I actually get stressed by the amount of new fitness/health/running blogs I have to keep up with (who doesn’t?) and just “mark all as read” and then move on with my day.

It’s called coping and it goes best with an iced coffee. Dairy free!

I’m actually going to have to add a whole new category to my blogroll. This sh*t is for real. Again I ask you – who am I?

Prior to *discovering* these blogs, I thought that health bloggers were… weird. They took pictures of everything they ate. Obsessively logged every mile of every run. Shared their splits (hopefully of the negative variety). Talked about running injuries (there were many). Complained about a .6 pound gain. Blah blah blah I don’t care.

And you know, some many of them are. But not all of them. I had to read many a fitness blog before finding the ones that were tolerable and relate-able for me. I mean, maybe you want to see every bite of food someone eats in a day. I don’t. So the ladies (and dude) I follow are really health bloggers that inspire me to work harder towards my fitness goals. Because that’s what works for me. And if you know nothing about me, I’m all about the number one.

So Lucy – you are a complete jerk for giving me about 100 more things to do in my day besides work, but it’s safe to say that when you shared this world with me, it was just another way you took me from couch to 5k. So thanks.

Countdown to marathon: 2 days. NBD.