I joined twitter a couple of years ago but I didn’t really ‘get it’.  I couldn’t understand why people would be interested in my day to day life – I mean I wasn’t even interested in it at the time!  But now, 200+ followers later, I have found a lovely group of people who encourage me, motivate me and cry with me through good times and bad and isn’t that the real definition of a friend?

I started off by using search sites like tweepsearch(sadly now no longer running) to find people on twitter who liked the same things as I did.  I searched for runners and followed a few, read their conversations with other runners and followed them too.  I tentatively joined in the conversations and gradually became more relaxed and now tweet like I would talk to a group of friends.  You have to be careful though as a quick search on your name in google will bring up some random tweets and your twitter feed is open to anyone to look at unless you make it private.  Twitter have caught up now and have their own ‘Who to follow’ tab to enable to find like minded tweeps.  Then came iPhone/iPad apps and other websites that link to your twitter feed.  If I post the details of a run on Daily Mile  it will automatically post to my twitter account because I have linked the accounts.

Then I moved to France and kept in contact with my new friends, posting great runs and pictures to make them green with envy, finding out whether to pop blisters or leave them and getting help identifying trees.  I met my running coach through twitter and am doing a half marathon in November with a lovely lady from ‘up north’ – both of these people would be strangers to me before twitter came along.  I chat with people from India, USA, Canada, France, Japan!

So I say to people who ask ‘what’s the point’ or ‘I don’t have time’ that it’s another way of meeting new people from all over the world and chatting about anything and everything.  That surely is worth my time.