Strava - Useful training tool or simply another form of social media?

hot buttered scones

Itziger wrote: »

HBS, it's not commenting for commenting sake but when I see people new to running, on here or Strava or in Real Life  (God forbid) and they don't pick the brains of people who've been there and done it. The amount I've learned from people's logs and posts on here, would need a book to do it justice. And the vast majority welcome questions about training and will reply and explain points. That is what I want from a forum or a social media thingy.

So proper engagement really, rather than just tossing out random kudoses and "well done - great session" type comments. I have tended to do most of that stuff on here and in real life, rather than Strava tbh. If I see a session that interests me on Strava and they are on here, I'll probably go and check out the training log for more info. I've learnt 99.999% of what I know about running from here - I'm including everything I've read in books because I found out about the books on here.
I suppose I still have a hell of a lot to learn , and some of the training based conversations go over my head, or if they don't I wouldn't have much else to say other than "thanks for that - I learned a lot".
A lot of the time when I give a "like" or whatever I'm basically just saying "nice wan biy" - the same way you'd shake a fella's hand after race. And I'm more likely to type out a comment and not be happy with it and just not bother - I can find the whole communication by social media thing a bit awkward at times. Tone and context are important and I find that they get lost in typed responses a lot of the time.
An just to put some tone around this - I'm trying to agree with you and give my own perspective. I'm just never sure that what I type is coming across the way I intended.

Sunny Dayz

Gosh I wouldn't really have considered Strava as social media tbh. I started using it a few years ago moving up from mapmyrun when I graduated from C25K. I would use it really for training but thinking about it, the app has become more social in the past year or so. It's great for reflecting on, there's a lot of information there, I like looking back on a run or a race and comparing how I felt to what the data tells me. I like seeing the training log to see how much (or how little) I've done in a week, month, year. I think it has helped my training. I find segments handy if I run them regularly or even comparing routes that I've run more than once for improvements (or otherwise). I don't really compare myself to others on segments, routes etc, as I'm a much slower runner so no point really. Of the people I follow on strava (only about 30/35) the vast majority I know IRL, the rest I know of from social media. None are outright strangers and I don't accept followings from complete strangers myself.

sideswipe

Anybody else getting random kudos from buxom blonde's lately? Twice now in the last week I've got kudos from random catfish, and that's after upgrading my security settings!! They must be fishing for information, no wonder I have a sudden urge to vote for Donald Trump!

zulutango

I'm very much a fan of Strava (synched with Garmin Connect). I've a Garmin Forerunner 235 and a separate heart rate strap because the optical heart rate sensor on the Garmin isn't reliable.

I credit Strava (in conjunction with the Garmin watch) with transforming my running. Between the training log, the kudos, the flybys and more recently the 'fitness & freshness' graphs my motivation to train, and to train smartly, has never been greater. I've gone from a 4.34 marathon some years back to hopefully a sub 3 hour marathon this year, and I think I can go a lot quicker again. To my mind Strava and the watch have played a huge part in this. Before I had these gadgets or software I certainly liked running, but I definitely fooled myself into how much I was doing and I wasn't at all smart about it. I'd hit what I thought was my natural ability. But I've way surpassed that now, and my progress is such that I expect to do times for all distances that I would have thought ridiculously fast before.

hot buttered scones

sideswipe wrote:

Anybody else getting random kudos from buxom blonde's lately? Twice now in the last week I've got kudos from random catfish, and that's after upgrading my security settings!! They must be fishing for information, no wonder I have a sudden urge to vote for Donald Trump!

I've had 3 or 4 the last week. I could have some very awkward questions to answer if this keeps up.

BeepBeep67

sideswipe wrote: »

Anybody else getting random kudos from buxom blonde's lately? Twice now in the last week I've got kudos from random catfish, and that's after upgrading my security settings!! They must be fishing for information, no wonder I have a sudden urge to vote for Donald Trump!

Do you have flybys turned on?
Are you part of any groups - you can also set 'hide from leaderboards'

AuldManKing

sideswipe wrote: »

Anybody else getting random kudos from buxom blonde's lately? Twice now in the last week I've got kudos from random catfish, and that's after upgrading my security settings!! They must be fishing for information, no wonder I have a sudden urge to vote for Donald Trump!

and I thought she was real. Damn that.

BeepBeep67

AuldManKing wrote: »

and I thought she was real. Damn that.

Potential remedy or cause of post run stiffness

jlang

Still logging to runningahead, but using strava via garmin connect as a backup. I don't really engage socially with following, kudossing or commenting but I usually look at the flybys and have a nose around after a race.  No catfish recently, but a nice filipino man followed me a while back (and then stopped). Other than that, a few friends and randomers, and a Bristolian.

Swashbuckler

I don't really understand people liking the segments aspect and tracking how they've improved on a route? Unless you're racing your training surely the segments thing is meaningless?

Jakey Rolling

Segments were initially more of a cycling thing, those lads seem to revel in blasting up any incline on their way around on a 3 hour spin. You're right, they can screw up your training runs if you are aware of them and push harder than you intended - when I started back I was forever pushing too hard to beat my own training segment times which probably contributed to injury in my first year. Don't think I've improved any of them in 2 years, though I'm racing faster than ever.

I was happy with MapMyRun, as it was meant as a multisport platform from the get go. I only moved over to Strava on joining a Tri Club, and being mostly cyclists they based their training groups around Strava. More and more of my purely running buddies moving on to it now so it looks like I'm stuck with it.

Regards the security zone, the next nearest neighbours are 500m in either direction, so I'd need a huge privacy radius to offer any ambiguity!

Signed up to premium for a while, but it didn't offer any analysis that I found particularly useful.

Mostly the public scrutiny means I am less likely to miss a session on a sh#tty day (today being one of those), and being honest there is a large element of narcissism in posting up epic runs and race results!

zulutango

Segments are pretty cool if you're a mountain runner. Every climb and descent has its challenges and quirks so it's interesting to see how you compare with others on the various ones. Technique probably plays a greater role than in road running and segments throw some light on this side of things I guess. It's probably comparable to cycling in that regard.

Swashbuckler

That's a good point actually. I hadn't considered the non road running aspect.

Timmaay

Got dragged into strava on a skiing holiday afew weeks ago (we were all trying to see who could hit the fastest downhill speed, my 98km/h wasn't near good enough ha), but as a track athlete who does most my training with a group I'll admit I've very little use for a Garmin or strava, the Garmin hasn't been charged in months. Instead I keep a basic Google spreadsheet, with 3 other clubmates in it also, useful to both keep track of training and motivation to keep up training.

I can certainly see the appeal of strava if you do alot of your mileage on your own, but personally I much more prefer the social dynamic of training with your clubmates the 3times a week or whatever.