This is part 2 in our series. Be sure to check out The Marathon of the Blogging World #1 to get caught up.

There will always be people ahead, and there will always be people behind. Every day the number of runners grows. All of them coming out of the gate at a different pace – some walking, some jogging, some even sprinting. But rest assured, 90% of them will fizzle out, and the other 10% will remain below you. But then, suddenly, you see one of that 10% starting to catch up.

You watch him weave through the other runners and come alongside, then pass you. You glare at him. You’ve been running for longer, how could he have achieved such success already. What secrets does he have? Unable to figure it out you start running again. Gradually the running begins to wear on you. You begin to ponder, “Is it worth it?”

What else could you be doing instead of running this race? Do you really have a chance of success anyway? Unable to conquer this thought, it gradually begins to wear on you. With every hour of time spent you wonder, “Is this worth it? Is it leading anywhere at all?” Some days you’ll wake up, and be full of energy. You’ll immediately start sprinting, and begin to see some of that success you were seeking. This inspires you to run longer, but then your progress slows. You become frustrated again, and slow down to a crawl. Doubts begin to roll back into your mind. Should you quit the race? Or should you keep running?

There are also days when you’ve just plateaued. You can’t seem to gain any ground on anybody. You are just staying the same distance from everybody. You glance off the track and see people weaving through the woods. Trying to find illegal shortcuts, or just going on risky paths. They scrounge around looking for a way to sneak into the lead. Whenever they succeed you wonder if it’s worth the risk to stray off the path. Some succeed, but many others don’t.

Some days you just feel like you can’t run anymore. You start running and are already exhausted. You’re not in the mood to sprint or even jog, and so your jog slows to a crawl. You begin to see the other runners catching up to you, but you’re to tired to do anything. All these days of mixed emotions, and mixed feelings are a part of the race.

This marathon is full of so many different racers with different strategies. You never know whether to try and copy somebody else’s success or try to create your own. All of these success and failures, trials and errors, they all contribute to this great race. How long are you going to run for? What pace will you run at? Will you stay on the path? Or will you stray from the path and try and create your own? What type of runner are you in this giant marathon. The Marathon of the Blogging World.

The Blogging world is like an enormous marathon. It’s not a sprint, but a cross country endurance race.

There are around 100 million runners in this race. Every day, new runners are joining, but they are forced to start at the beginning. Every day, all day, these people are running against each other. But because it’s an endurance race, they aren’t angry with each other, and there isn’t too much rivalry, because you respect the other’s ability to run with you. Everybody wants to win, but they don’t typically have hard feelings.

There are many different types of running styles. Some do the slow but consistent approach. Not a lot of sprinting, but no water breaks. Others prefer to go in spurts, sprinting for as long as they can, but then slowing down because they got tired. Some runners just seem to have no end of excess energy, and just keep sprinting and sprinting. Everybody watches them go by and wonders how much longer can they keep it up. They watch them, jealously waiting for them to slow down, so that they can take the lead again.

In this 100 million man marathon, there are many different packs of runners. Based on how much time they’re able to sprint, and when they joined the race, they are in different groups. You have the pack leaders like Matt Cutts, Problogger and Seth Godin, who have been running for years. They joined the race early and have a huge jump on everybody. Then you have the second group, with the DoshDosh and Daily Blog Tips.

Close behind you find the third group – Gary Conn, John Chow, and Tyler Cruz. Following them there are hordes of others, running and running, fighting each other to move up into these groups. These blogs have been running forever, but some have slipped up. Some like DoshDosh have stumbled – they have gotten tired and tapped out. Now he’s trying to make a comeback, can he catch up again? There are hundreds of blogging clambering to take his place, trying to step into the second tier.

Of these millions of blogs, very few have remained active. Very few have been able to run the race for long. 90% of these blogs have faltered after only three months of running, most even sooner than that. Only about 15 million blogs have remained active, and are still running.

The amount of runners are growing every day. There was a 30 million growth in runners this past year. But only 2 million of those new runners continue to run the race. None seem to be able to have the endurance. None have the motivation, ambition and drive to keep them running.

Matt Cutts, Problogger, and Seth Godin, have already reached their end. They are guaranteed a metal, they’ve already achieved the success they were seeking when they started blogging. They can see the finish line.

But the new bloggers, they can’t see the finish line. They dream of what it’ll be like, but few have the prowess to keep themselves running for it. They don’t have the commitment. They don’t have the energy to start off sprinting. Most of these blogs start off at a jog, telling themselves that they’ll ease into it, and start sprinting once they’ve gained some momentum. Once they’ve achieved some success they’ll start sprinting to maximize on it. But the success never comes, they just join the pack of jogging bloggers, and never get any ambition to start running.

Gradually, they get frustrated of their lack of success, and fizzle out. Few can keep themselves motivated through the rocky terrain at the start of the race. They haven’t gotten used to this arduous task and so they struggle. Few have the insight to look behind them. If you look behind you, you’ll see the millions of racers behind you that are trying to catch up with where you are. This can give you motivation to continue, to chase the people ahead of you.

This is the first in a two part series on this topic. The second portion will be published in a few days. Stay tuned.