If you've been a fan of RunnerSpace over the last six years you have seen the incredible growth of the site and also have been a part of the learning curve.  Almost two years ago we began working on the new site you see today. The first step of this long revamp process was to write down all the feedback people had with the site and focused in those areas.  We then laid out an 18 month long plan to completely recode and restructure the site. All the RunnerSpace regulars have surely seen many of the code updates as they were put in place over the last year, but today all the pieces finally fit together! There have literally been thousands of improvements so make sure to take some time this week to explore the new site!

Below are some of our favorites:

-FINDING THINGS - We started with the search since people always had problems finding things. We created an incredible Ajax search that can instantly search through over a million bios, teams, videos, events and more on our site.  Give it a try by typing in your favorite event in the search field at the top of the site.

-IMPROVING OUR VIDEOS - With almost 100,000 videos posted on RunnerSpace to date, it's pretty clear that this is one of our biggest focuses (we have more running related videos than any other site in the world!) so we we stepped things up to make all our videos Hi-Def as well as mobile/tablet friendly.

-BUGS - We had countless little bugs across the site that would confuse and frustrate users; many little things add up to a lot.  We are happy to say that currently there are very few bugs across the site, but as always let us know if you find something.

-COMMENTING and SHARING - It was a no-brainer to make commenting and sharing super easy within our site as well as with other social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  We tossed our old commenting system to make comments update in real time and connected Facebook and Twitter to the comments to let people share what they are saying or doing automatically. 

-FOLLOWING WHAT YOU WANT TO FOLLOW - Next we made the ultimate track and field / XC / Road Racing following experience.  Lets face it, people want to personalize everything and see the things that interest you while hiding the noise.  You can now follow any event, team, bio and profile with a simple click of the follow button (it works very similarly to Twitter and Facebook). You'll see that our new homepage showcases this front and center so make sure to login and start personalizing RunnerSpace.  

-RESTYLING AND STRUCTURE - Next we wanted to restyle and restructure the look and feel to be able to showcase all the cool things going on within our site and our sport in a new and exciting way. Simpler layouts, promo scrollers, sub-navigation and a much improved RunnerSpace menubar were all the keys in this effort.

-HUBS - Many of us are big fans of the other major sports sites like ESPN.com, FoxSports.com, BleacherReport.com, etc., so we wanted to give the same feel in terms of segmenting out the different levels to our sport.  Some people are just interested in college or high school so we created hubs for High School, College, Pro and Road Racing that are dedicated to those levels.  We took it even further by bringing on industry leaders to manage each of the hubs personally so you won't have some machine deciding what's important or not.

-LOCAL - General organization has always been an issue on our site, so we created state and province sites as well as different divisions like NCAA Div 1, NCAA Div 2, etc., so you can find any team in any state and/or any level quickly. We also added directories for running stores and clubs.  Lastly, we now have level sub-bars on all our events and teams to always keep you one click away from relevant content and features.

Are we "done" now?  NO definitely not, many more improvements are on the horizon and will continue to improve forever.  We just know that the site is ready and really want it to be out in the heart of the XC championship season. Thanks to everyone out there for being a part of this with us!  Hopefully the revamped RunnerSpace.com site will bring our slogan "You Run the Place" to life in a whole new way!

Ross Krempley
RunnerSpace.com