Gradual Re-Launching
Instead of bringing EliteRunning.com back with a bang, we are going to be gradually putting it back together. The site went down late in 2008 because we needed to move to a cheaper web host. Unfortunately, the cheaper host did not support our content management system, so we had to redo the entire site.
Because this site is essentially a side project for one person who has a full-time job, we have decided to narrow the focus of the site, so we can do a better job. We will focus on women’s elite distance running at the college and post-collegiate levels. We will still be posting photos of men’s races from the events we attend, and we are adding a results section, which will apply to both sexes. However, the news links, interviews, and features will focus solely on women.
A huge thanks goes to Parker Morse of Common Media, Inc. for his countless hours of behind-the-scenes work on this site…with many more hours of work still to come!
If you are interested in contributing to the site, or have any other feedback please let us know!
Allison,
Great to have you back! Margaret and I were so pleased when the home page poped up…we chack on a regular basis.
Going forward, if you want some pics just let me know. I’m travelling to some of my daughters meets (she ran a 4:26/2:11 1500/800 last night..both PRs) along with the usual west coast stuff such as Stanford Invite, Pac-10s. I can put a women’s emphasis on what I send.
BTW, who did you go with for web host…just curious,
Spencer
really glad to see you back!
Spencer, the old site was running a custom Python app, and to host it Alison went with a VPN at a host which was actually pretty good. (CMI has a dedicated server with them now.) When the cost of the VPN got absurd, Alison couldn’t maintain the Python app on a less expensive host.
What we’ve gone back to is Dreamhost, where both Alison and I have a fairly long history. They still host LAMP applications for a pretty good price (both the applications behind this site are PHP-based) and Alison has a package with lots of disk space which is significantly less expensive than the old VPN.
welcome back! i have always appreciated your excellent web work.
Alison, glad to see you’re back! See you in Eugene?
D.
Great to have Eliterunninig back!
Hooray! Welcome back.
Is it possible to upload the photo archives? I’m especially interested in the Wharf to Wharf races. I understand if you can’t, but i’ve always enjoyed the elitrunning.com (and mensracing.com, fastwomen.com, etc) photography more than the other sites. You and PJM and your photography staff always had the best shots!
So glad you’re back–and, needless to say, quite happy about the focus on elite women’s distance running!
@Mike – Restoring the photo archives is the biggest challenge in front of us. The photos are still intact, but the database which stored all of Alison’s metadata (that is, the captions, tags, etc.) is somewhat less than perfect. Paralleling the problem of the main site (where the structure was written in Python, which the new host doesn’t support), the old database was a Postgres database, and the new host only supports MySQL. Gallery can use several database engines, which is why we have a new Gallery running on the site, but shifting the database for the original site from Postgres to MySQL has been problematic, and complicated by the fact that the site had a staggering 80,000 photos online, which is a pretty heavy load.
Nothing’s impossible, of course, but bringing back those photos with their captions and keywords intact is challenging.
glad you’re back (also with pjm’s articles). I always enjoyed your sites.
Alison, I’m just glad the site is back! It looks great, and love the fact that I can visit and get linked to good articles and pictures.