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

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.