Strava-ing

Since the IrunFar.com's Holiday Strava Challenge, I must say I've caught the "Strava Bug". I've been perusing the site, checking the local segments and more importantly my regional competitors. 

It seems like my area (central MA) has a bunch of cyclists that use it and very few runners. As you move inside the 95 beltway, there seems like more people have caught on, especially in the Boston area.

I've even got one of my training partners to ditch his RunTracker App for the Strava App. We hit the trails this week and "competed"(not really) with each other. Somehow, he ended up with 8.1 miles and myself with 7.6. Same route, as he was staring at my butt the whole time. I know the GPS in the phones could have lost connection a few times, just didn't think a half mile difference could occur. No biggie.

This is actually the first time I've "tracked" my miles. Normally, if I ran the roads, I would use the run measurement tool on Runningahead.com and If I ran the trails, a little guess-ti-mation occurred. Pace, hills, etc. If anything, I was selling myself short. Turns out many of the standard routes I've run on trails have been off. Not a bad thing. Just looks like my weekly, monthly and yearly totals should have been higher. Again, no biggie. Just numbers.

Strava has pushed me when I don't really want to push. It has me finding "segments" and hitting them hard. Good thing? Yeah. Has it negated my easy run. Maybe. I actually have a bit of a battle going on with a local runner near work. We've been trading off CR's for the past week. I thought of possibly contacting said runner to hit the trails/roads but have decided not to. The race inside the run is just too much fun.