In junior school, my teacher told my parents that no matter what she asked me to write about, I would find a way to mention cricket. And in my own story, I must crowbar it in early, because my love and ineptitude for it led directly to a love and ineptitude for running. In 2003, playing for my village team, I chipped a weak catch to a fielder, and vowed to “get down the gym” to bulk up and increase my whacking power.
The gym instructor (gave me the obligatory tour of the equipment, and despite my protestations, I was forced to try out the treadmill. A week later I finally let go of the sides, a few months later I was running for 45 minutes. Six months later I ventured out on to the roads, never to return to the gym – nor to cricket.
Running is the purest sport there is (with the possible exception of snooker). You don’t need equipment, or a pitch, or complicated rules, or a third umpire. You start off here, and you end up there, and you try to spend as little time in between as you can. But considering this simplicity, it’s utterly amazing just how many stats you can squeeze out between runs.
That’s how Fetcheveryone started. I’m a web developer by trade, and I made a very basic web page where I could record the basic details of my training runs. On top of that I calculated all sorts of percentages, performance indicators and progress reports to show how I was improving, during that sweet spot in every runner’s early career where you can’t tie your shoes without getting a PB.
By the end of 2004, I had run a couple of races, and also started sharing my training log tools with other runners on the internet (including, as it turns out, my wife – we got married in 2011). They shouted out ideas, and told me what was broken, and I coded them up, and fixed and meddled. I broke things occasionally, but they got used to that, and as we moved along, we started to make something really special. I gave it a colour scheme that could stun an ox, slapped a logo on it, and watched as a website puffed and sweated its way out of the primordial silicon swamp.
Two years later, we had reached about 5,000 users, and a huge amount of my spare time was taken up with tinkering away at the site. Out of the blue, some guys in fancy shirts from Natmag Rodale took me out for a pizza, and said nice things. After eight months of soul-searching, I agreed to sell them the rights to the website, and in exchange, they offered me a full-time job to continue looking after it.
And very little has changed since then, except the website itself, and my life. I still remember the first Monday, sitting at my hastily constructed home office in the spare bedroom, cracking my knuckles, hardly believing my luck. Several users predicted apocalyptic outcomes, the onset of corporate thumbscrews, and the destruction of everything we’d enjoyed for the past few years in our own little corner of the internet. I can say that, because somewhere inside, I worried about that too – but I also had massive hope, and the excitement of freedom.
I think I’ve seen the people I work for about 10-15 times since 2006. They sell the adverts on the site that generate its revenue, and they get me the occasional mention in Runner’s World magazine, but aside from that, I just get on with it, and they trust me to do so. I make the web pages, I write the code, I look after the database, I write the articles, I handle user problems, I make the graphics (sorry), I send out the emails, and I make the coffee (sometimes). I work on a laptop at our dinner table, across the way from my wife, who is a physio (she works in our front room). And I let the site take me where it wants.
Over the years, it has taken me to all sorts of places. We’ve seen a handful of marriages (a few un-marriages too); get-togethers, where an increasing number of people I know only by their online names grin at the camera with “Fetch Everyone” written on their fronts; a few rare dealings with the police; fundraising efforts for charity; a surprise party; but most of all, a constant trickle of people who have found friends, fitness, and the opportunity to argue with strangers on the internet.
It made me smile when I saw the comments on the Guardian blog about how clunky Fetch looks. I was always pretty awful at anything arty in school, and not much has changed. But I’m proud of those rough edges, because they are real. We’re not a global brand, we don’t have a multimillion-dollar investment and we don’t pretend to have six-packs, nor peddle lists of vegetables that make you immortal. What we do have is a community of people with a fetish for running and graphs, who care about the site – and that’s all I care about.
Why Fetcheveryone?
https://youtube.com/watch?v=74BzSTQCl_c%3Fwmode%3Dopaque%26feature%3Doembed
https://youtube.com/watch?v=74BzSTQCl_c%3Fenablejsapi%3D1%26version%3D3
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In 1999, I was watching this scene from Léon: The Professional having put away a fair amount of wine. I misremembered the quote, but the idea stuck, and the domain name was born. I had a thought about holding a party and inviting everyone I knew, and getting them to do the same – but frankly I lacked the organisational skills, and the everyone, so the site remained in patient silence for another five years.
Ian Williams tweets at @fetcheveryone
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