The data is in - Strava is wrecking the sport

IdontKnowButIveBeenTold wrote:

Have you heard "If it isn't on Strava, it didn't happen?" Some people think it is verifiable proof of an athletic feat. Any real runner won't care much about running faster than someone else from this corner to that corner. In addition, I have heard of people who will ride their bike or use a scooter to get a strava segment record. Sad.

Real race results can easily be found. That is proof that they happened on a track or a certified road course, and all the people who were there to witness it. I don't need more than that. Maybe some do. To each their own.

Those who use bikes or scooters, cars for run segments can be flagged. If there is questionable gps it can be taken down quitely by the report button. If the run has neither cadence nor heart rate data it might be a cheat with a bike. So you have to analyze the pace then. The car cheats will do a run and go to their car and drive a mile then hit stop on the watch, getting a CR at the end and if they get caught they just crop it off after they get flagged.

trollism wrote:

Just don't be so insecure about it.

The hot runner girls aren't touching themselves in the bath because of some guy's 6:10 mile pace run or their impressive segment up Squirrelcock Lane, nor were they about to give you a booty call until they saw your sensible 10 miler.

They don't care. Nobody does.

Chortle! Love this and the subsequent approvals. The irony is strong with this one.

Sounds like someone got burned on one of their local segments and is feeling, erm, rather insecure about it!

The genuine "don't care" runners genuinely don't care. They ain't posting down on some hobbyjoggers they got smoked by. LOLZ.

Segment CR Winner! wrote:

trollism wrote:

Just don't be so insecure about it.

The hot runner girls aren't touching themselves in the bath because of some guy's 6:10 mile pace run or their impressive segment up Squirrelcock Lane, nor were they about to give you a booty call until they saw your sensible 10 miler.

They don't care. Nobody does.

Chortle! Love this and the subsequent approvals. The irony is strong with this one.

Sounds like someone got burned on one of their local segments and is feeling, erm, rather insecure about it!

The genuine "don't care" runners genuinely don't care. They ain't posting down on some hobbyjoggers they got smoked by. LOLZ.

I'm worse than a hobbyjogger these days, I'm a 'fitness jogger'.

I do a couple of light jogs a week to maintain a reasonable healthy lifestyle and not get fat.

So I have no idea how many people are smoking me on my local roads, but I'm sure there are loads. But I'm not insecure about it cause nobody cares. Even I don't care about my running and I'm the one doing it, why would I care what anyone else thought?

I managed to let my ego sabotage my progress pre-Strava. When I was a 33-34 10k guy in my 20s, I ran all of my distance runs between 6:00-7:00 pace because I didn't want to look like a "jogger" (ironic for a 33-34 guy). Should have been a minute slower at least with more miles. Now I'm trying to impart this hard-earned wisdom to my kids.

Shame on me for thinking that a thread title stating "The data is in" would, you know, include data.

set a PR? wrote:

BergLaufer wrote:

If for example you stop for a minute on your easy run to tie your shoes, it subtracts that minute from your run and average pace is faster. For example, if you ran 10 k easy in 46 minutes, but stopped for a minute to tie your shoes, it would show up as a 45 minute run. And average pace would go from 4:36 km to 4:30 km.

Or, if you stopped because you couldn't hold your pace you get a free ride for the time you stopped. So, run really fast each kilometer, stop for a minute, run another kilometer. You'll set a PR!

The Strava "Best estimated" PRs are calculated on elapsed time, as well as the segments, so if you stop to tie your shoe, that wouldn't matter.

In terms of calculating moving time, I don't understand the issue. I stop during my easy runs all the time to use the bathroom, get a sip of water at a water fountain, tie my shoe, pause to meet up a friend if I want to run a little more mileage than they do, or wait at a traffic light. I don't see how that stop time is relevant to my training pace at all. I also don't think it's a huge deal to stop during easy runs.

Strava is the worst workout app. Can’t get .25 mile splits with it.

This makes no sense! Your strava and garmin are not syncing correctly! The only difference should be that strava does not usually hit the mile mark for a few seconds. I always run say 8.01 miles on my Garmin to make sure Strava says 8.0 miles. Stava also sometimes rounds up the miles which makes no sense on your splits at bottom of your run. Fix your watch dude! Shouldn't be that far off!!! I use it for biking and running and swimming and have the Garmin 935!

This is how many people run their intervals in my area. 5 x 1K @ 3.20 with 2 min rest, they pause their watch on the breaks and end up with a fast 5K of 16.40 so they have something to brag about it. Yet they barely break 18' in an actual race because they lack endurance.

But ... 'bro I ran sub 17'. Yeah ... 'well done I guess?'

I do workouts like this, but Strava doesn't show 5k PR because it uses elapsed time for distance (imported from Garmin). Garmin connect on the other hand, says it's a PR for me. Maybe it depends what brand watch you are using or if it's the Strava app itself

I'm 47 and a 3:11 marathoner. I run all my training runs between 7:40 and 7:10 pace. I never ran like this until I discovered Strava. I ended up shaving 30 minutes off my marathon PR with this training plan. I especially get a kick out of finishing in the top 5 daily on my local segments and smoking younger runners. Thank you Strava.

hi Laura, we can see you spamming your sh!tty guide on every strava related thread

Interesting take op. When I was on strava, I noticed I felt self conscious about any slow running. Even on easy runs, I wanted to run at least moderately fast to try to take segments or at least get on the leader board. I'd try to train right, but the temptation was often too much. End result was by 6 months after starting strava I wasn't enjoying running much any more. I stopped uploading data and within a few weeks stopped using a gps watch altogether. Just seeing the data was enough for me to be thinking about it the whole run and just wasn't very fun. I was running the same pace in races after that period that I was at the start of it.

Kvothe wrote:

Interesting take op. When I was on strava, I noticed I felt self conscious about any slow running. Even on easy runs, I wanted to run at least moderately fast to try to take segments or at least get on the leader board. I'd try to train right, but the temptation was often too much. .

How old are you?

Sorry Phil, but you come across as a complete tool in this post.

Kvothe wrote:

Interesting take op. When I was on strava, I noticed I felt self conscious about any slow running. Even on easy runs, I wanted to run at least moderately fast to try to take segments or at least get on the leader board. I'd try to train right, but the temptation was often too much. End result was by 6 months after starting strava I wasn't enjoying running much any more. I stopped uploading data and within a few weeks stopped using a gps watch altogether. Just seeing the data was enough for me to be thinking about it the whole run and just wasn't very fun. I was running the same pace in races after that period that I was at the start of it.

You have a point. There is something about sharing your runs publicly like with Strava that puts added pressure on you, of course it shouldn't and it is silly but knowing someone will look at your run stats can seem strange. Saying that for me if I do a decent time in a race or time trial i'll want people to see it, it's nice to have people say 'well done' etc now and again, and to show off a bit.

I used to track my runs but it got obsessive. In the end, in my case the data wasn't just unnecessary, it was an active hindrance.

Let's face it, GPS data is only really *required* for elites, and is useful for those building to a specific event. For the rest of us, it's a luxury and I suspect, for many of us it detracts from the enjoyment of the sport.

I never really understood the point of strava. The data never transfers over correctly and I couldn't find anything on their website that garmin connect doesn't already do for free. As far as a running log goes, I a huge fan of http://running2win.com. Been using that since I graduated college.

The amount of people on my feed regularly doing 60min “easy runs” at 85% avg max HR with 80min elapsed time is pretty amusing.

As someone already pointed out, it's not really changing anything just giving a spotlight to people who would have trained like idiots anyway. Like any other SM, Strava draws attention-seekers who need a pat on the back to motivate them to do anything or need to outdo others in training to feel validated. There were always plenty of guys who "beat" me on most training runs yet I never, ever lost to them in racing. I learned pretty early on not to worry about them at all.